What's He Building In There?

There is truly something to be said for stories that scrub your brain of the day-to-day heaviness and grief we surround ourselves with. I finally sat down to watch Safety Not Guaranteed and fell into a trance. What a delightfully fun and light-hearted movie. While the storyline flirts somewhat with heavy-handedness at times, this story does not take itself too seriously.

Safety Not Guaranteed was brought to you by the makers of Little Miss Sunshine. (And two nerd blogs have confirmed that the directing and writing duo Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly are currently working to remake of Flight of the Navigator next.) Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass star as epically adorable main characters who appear both lovable and troubled. Plaza plays a jaded intern at a Seattle magazine who immediately agrees to research and write a story about an ad placement requesting a time travel partner. Partnering with Jake Johnson, (you're talkin' to a Nick Miller fan here, people) and another young and nerdy intern, the three hit the road to begin their work.

What we find in this journey is an innocent, sweet childlike quality in Plaza and Duplass' obvious romance as they discover their separate, hidden agendas. While Plaza is dealing with the passing of her mother at a pivotal time in her emotional development past, Duplass is dealing with the death of an old girlfriend. (Or so we think.) Throughout the tiny, not always predictable plot twists, we are sprinkled with the storyline of Jake Johnson's character who is scheming to get back together with his high school girlfriend who conveniently lives in the town within time traveling proximity. 

While each plot twist doesn't exactly pair up or strategically matter much to the overall outcome, I found myself curiously outguessed at every turn. In the end, while you know the two characters will eventually find their way to each other, that lingering devices may not tie up neatly and while simple time travel questions will of course go unanswered, (you've jaded me hard, J.J. Abrams), I found Safety Not Guaranteed to be one of the cutest movies I've seen in awhile.