“Stormtroopers don’t know anything about lasers or time-travel. They’re blue-collar workers.”
In 1997, John Silveira, an editor at Backwoods Home Magazine, was in a bit of a pickle. His classified section for the September/October issue had undersold and he needed something to fill in the extra space. Just something harmless, a benign bit of text that wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye. In a moment of conspiratorial inspiration, perhaps brought about by the impending deadline, a silly idea came to him. He thought he could slide in a spoof ad as an innocuous little joke and get a chuckle or two. He even left clues so that anyone who cared enough would be able to pin the joke on him. But a lot of people noticed and his little joke became the stuff of legend.
WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA 93022. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.
More than a decade later when Silveira finally admitted the ruse, his fictional time-traveler had received thousands of letters to his anonymous P.O. Box and the ad had become something of a meme urban legend.
Around the time that Silveira’s ad first ran, there was a pair of NYU interns at Saturday Night Live by the names of Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly. Perhaps you’ve heard of some of the films that the duo have worked on together—culturally obscure stuff like Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. They’re huge names now, but before they sold out to the machine, they needed a resume builder to give them the opportunity to do so.
That calling card came in the form of Safety Not Guaranteed, a wonderful slice of sci-fi comedy that exceeds expectations at every turn. Taking inspiration from Silveira’s joke ad (and transporting it to Washington State) Connolly wrote a screenplay around the idea that the placer of the ad was a real person. Discovering whether he is a kook, a practical joker, or a mad genius is the central question that keeps the film in perfect balance for its breezy 1.5 hours.
Indeed, that question is quite literally how we are put onto his trail in the film’s opening scenes, in which Seattle Magazine interns Darius (Aubrey Plaza) and Arnau (Karan Soni) volunteer to tag along while senior writer Jeff Schwensen (Jake Johnson) tries to make the mysterious ad into an article. Actually, Jeff is more interested in rekindling a high school flame than getting the story, and treats the work trip as a mini-vacation. He has the interns stake out the P.O. box and leaves it up to Darius to use her feminine wiles and offbeat charm to get beyond the eccentric loner’s social barriers.
Portrayed by mumblecore pioneer Mark Duplass, Kenneth Calloway is a brilliantly realized character—an idiosyncratic recluse who works as a grocery store clerk and keeps a loaded shotgun in the trunk of his rusting yellow Datsun. The kind of guy who thinks federal agents are watching his every move and knows how to break into a government lab to steal lasers but will decide to abandon his entire mission when his partner discovers that he has a prosthetic ear. The kind of guy who can look an attractive young lady in the eye and seriously respond to the question “Do you sell guns here?” by informing her that “the state of Washington does not allow the sale of firearms in the business premises of a grocer.” The entire scene that includes that quote is a true gem, as Darius approaches Kenneth while he stocks a shelf with cans of soup. It’s an absurd battle of wits. After the exchange about guns, she asks if they sell flails—which she describes as “the thingies with the spiky ball on the end of a chain.” He even ostensibly takes this seriously. “What exactly is the intended use? Is there a pest problem, or hunting?” he asks. “Well, if your ad had been written properly, I may have a better idea of what I need.”
As the conversation concludes, she takes a can of soup from his hand and, without breaking eye contact, places it on the shelf for him. Moments of verbal comedy like this one abound, and as much credit is due to Connolly as the performers themselves. It’s a lighthearted kind of wit that is elevated by an outstanding comedic chemistry between Plaza and Duplass. Duplass, in particular, has an almost impossible role that he knocks out of the park. I mean, we’ve got to approach this guy like he’s a nutjob, be intrigued by his eccentricities, begin to take him seriously as an improbable genius, and then also accept him as a legitimate love interest for Darius. Connolly wisely inserts several “reset” moments in the script where new revelations force the audience to periodically back up and adjust their expectations for Kenneth. Jake Johnson is also perfectly cast as a crass, scruffy jerkwad with a steady stream of offensive but hilarious lines. More than that though, Johnson exhibits the ability make seemingly benign dialogue funny with his delivery and mannerisms. I’m not sure how much adlibbing was allowed, but there was either some Coen-esque level of detail on Connolly’s part, or the actors were given some freedom to have fun. It was probably a combination of the two, and you can feel the joy of the cast as they bring these bizarre scenes to life.
But I wouldn’t love this film if it was just funny. It also has heart. I hesitate to call it a romantic comedy with all the connotations that entails, but it has two separate love stories that focus its zany storyline and bring things to an emotionally resonant level. Jeff’s failed pursuit of Liz (Jenica Bergere) is fine and belongs in the film, but the dynamic between Darius and Kenneth is where we find the good stuff. At first, Darius is focused on uncovering the story of Kenneth Calloway like a good little intern, but she gradually discovers that despite his dilapidated abode, goofy demeanor and fake ear that the man has a heart of gold. Their romantic arc climaxes in a campfire scene where Kenneth plays a song he has been writing for the girl he wishes to travel back in time to save. Duplass, who is a semi-accomplished musician in his own right, performs “Big Machine”, written by Guster frontman Ryan Miller, who composed the film’s soundtrack. It’s always a risk to break from a narrative film for a musical moment like this, but it works very well (although I may be subconsciously biased toward Miller’s songwriting style because Guster was a formative band for me). Its an earnest moment, bookended by Kenneth bashfully saying he can’t play the zither very well—only to start fingerpicking a zither—and then saying he messed up a bunch of parts after giving a very solid performance. It’s that unpretentious mixture of sincerity and laid back, offbeat humor that makes Safety Not Guaranteed a winner, and this scene captures that vibe perfectly.
Looking at things from another angle, I think Safety Not Guaranteed works impeccably well because it takes the idea of time travel seriously without getting bogged down in its mechanics. None of the characters, except Kenneth—who may be a wacko—really take the prospect of literal time travel seriously, but each of them pines for some earlier time when life was better for them. Specifically, Jeff wishes to return to his glory days when he was a stud, Darius yearns for her the time of her childhood before her mother died, and Kenneth wants to save Bellinda (Kristen Bell). And since the potential fruit of Kenneth’s labors is pushed to the very end of the film, it’s simply the concept of potentially altering the past that acts as the engine for the bulk of the film.
Any true fanatic of the medium will call this film Trevorrow and Connolly’s best. They grossed over a billion on each of Jurassic World and The Rise of Skywalker1, but those films had budgets that were hundreds of times that of Safety Not Guaranteed and don’t come close to it in terms of creativity, economy, comedy, and sincerity. It stands out prominently from the rest of their oeuvres as the stepping-stone “indie” that put them on the map, since which they’ve made piles of money on franchise films. Too bad so many talented filmmakers choose to leave this sweet spot behind in favor of overproduced spectacle. You can’t convince me those films are better than this one.
1. Note: J.J. Abrams directed The Rise of Skywalker; Trevorrow and Connolly were credited with the story.
Sources:
Singer, Matt. “SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED – Traveling through time with Mark Duplass and Aubrey Plaza”. SUNfiltered. 11 January 2012. (Archived).