SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (Colin Trevorrow). Opens Friday (June 15). See times. Rating: NNN
As lo-fi sci-fi goes, Safety Not Guaranteed can’t really compete with the headier, more thoughtful experiences of Another Earth and Sound Of My Voice. But as a hipster rom-com about people trying to shake off their pasts to make present-day connections, it’s pretty satisfying.
An oddball classified ad (“Wanted: Someone to go back in time with me”) in a small-town paper puts a trio of Seattle journalists (Jake Johnson, Aubrey Plaza, Karan Soni) on the trail of an eccentric physicist (Mark Duplass) who claims he’s building a time machine.
Intern Plaza goes undercover as a potential companion, and as she trains for the mission she finds she has more in common with her paranoid mentor than she first suspected.
Everyone in the movie is chasing something they’ve lost, and Plaza and Duplass find real chemistry in their little hesitations and averted glances. The gentle growth of their relationship is pushed aside by an ending that overreaches badly, but it’s nice while it lasts.
