My wife and I both really liked Safety Not Guaranteed. It is a delightful and understated little indie film, one which departs from standard indie fare in important and surprising ways.

In its first third, this film feels a bit like a lot of other indie films. There’s some funny dialog, the characters are quirky, it’s all a touch cold, and the central idea of the story (some weirdo is advertising in the newspaper for a partner to travel with him back in time) grabs your attention. Most modern indie films can get to this point, and then they fall flat on their face into a pool of mostly unresolved existential angst or wacky absurdity. What makes Safety Not Guaranteed stand out is the way the film evolves emotionally. In the middle of the film, suddenly the characters start warming up! Their inner humanity begins to shine forth, they start evolving away from who they were, they start behaving in surprising ways. And I must say, it’s all done in a very pleasing, low-key fashion – it creeps up on you. In the beginning, I really didn’t like any of the characters; by the end I liked all of them – when was the last time that happened in an indie film?

As the film is warming up, it reaches a point where the warmth starts accelerating rapidly; this occurs at the scene where the guy plays the song he wrote for his girlfriend. It’s a magic moment, when he performs that song, because it so beautifully captures the way those characters feel about life (As my wife put it, “It’s perfect! It’s about how we’re all a bunch of pod people!”) The song, the performance, the girl’s reaction to the performance: it’s just spot-on wonderful, and from that point on the film is totally in another place from where it started. As for the film’s ending, I don’t want to give anything away, but let me just say this: The modern indie movement does not place a lot of value on non-ambiguous endings; in this way it is very different from its progenitor, the Indie Renaissance of the 1990’s. But Safety Not Guaranteed defies modern norms: the emotional warmth of the film soars in its final minutes, almost to the level of top-flight romantic comedy, and it works marvelously!

The performances are solid across the board. I think Mark Duplass is excellent; he’s a really exciting new star, combining the charisma of George Clooney, the comic presence of Jason Segal, and the warmth and earnestness of maybe Jude Law; I hope he keeps pulling good leading roles like this.  His co-lead Aubrey Plaza left me a little cold sometimes, but she more than made up for that with her realism, and as the film warms up she comes across better and better (as does Jake M. Johnson.) Kristen Bell is great in a bit part – I’m not sure why she isn’t playing the lead role in this film, but let me not even go there. She’s great in a tiny part, playing a shallow, superficial blonde.

Although its quality does not run super-deep, and I would not call this film great, it is very well-made and really enjoyable from start to finish. I might even watch Safety Not Guaranteed again at some point. I highly recommend it!