The worst thing you’ll see all week: Safety Not Guaranteed

Posted by on October 31, 2012 in Movies

In the twee hipster-than-thou comedy Saftey Not Guaranteed, twee hipster Aubrey Plaza comments on someone’s laptop.

“Why do you have flames on your laptop?”

“It’s a gaming laptop. It’s really fast.”

Then hipster Jake Johnson picks them up for some putative time travel shenanigans. It’s like Looper, but more hip. Guess where such a hip movie is set. If you guessed Oregon, you’re close enough. A dude makes Aubrey Plaza fall in love with him by playing a zither. That’s right, a zither. Not since The Third Man has a zither been used so effectively.

Safety Not Guaranteed is mostly just an appeal to people who think Aubrey Plaza is hot. Which, sure, she is. But for any sort of convincing emotion, you’re left with Jake Johnson trying not to cry while driving a go-cart, smoking a cigarette, and swigging whiskey from a bottle. Dig it. There. I just saved you ninety minutes. It’s enough to make a guy want to catch up on The New Girl.

At least Mark Duplass as a mentally unbalanced time traveller — or is he? — lends the movie some sincerity. To see Duplass in a better movie, I cannot recommend strongly enough the hilarious Hump Day, which exists completely outside the usual studio conventions and the typical twee indie vibe. And for the non-grating version of Safety Not Guaranteed, see Happy Accidents with Marisa Tomei and Vincent D’Onofrio.

Safety Not Guaranteed is out now on DVD and VOD (here’s an Amazon.com link to support Qt3).

  • Anonymous

    Hipsterer-than-thou?

  • RedHerb

    You might enjoy hump day director’s foray into French farce, Your sister’s sister. Dulplass and Emily blunt are pretty good in that. Is there a good use twee in a film ? That actually sounds like a 3×3, top three twee moments!

  • Miramon

    I thought it was fine as a sort of student film, which it gave the impression of being.

    But as the work of a professional team it had let us say something to be desired. As you mentioned, the Jake Johnson character and subplot was painful, a failure of writing, I think, even more than a failure of casting and acting, which it also was.

  • cam

    you are a troll, now confirmed.

  • tomchick

    TOM CHICK < CRAP.