Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
Directed by Derek Connolly
***SPOILERS***
Of all the pointless grievances people openly complain of in
regards to film—from unanswered mysteries to excessive violence to whether or not 50/50 exploits cancer for laughs—nothing seems more
insignificant and banal than discussing the logistics of time travel. Well,
other than fretting about whether or not Carl Fredricksen from Up is too goddamn old to be running around like that. Anyway, I’m no expert on time
travel…but even writing that sentence just seems so fucking absurd. Expert on
time travel? Expert on something we can’t even do? (as far as I know :-O) And
I’ve seen enough movies (Back to the Future, Source Code, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, fucking Time Bandits) to know
that, yeah, there really isn’t a coherent consensus on the subject in the world
of film. Hell, if Inception can just make up a bunch of rules about
dreams, why not do it for time travel? As far as I’m concerned, Bill
and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’s take on time travel is every bit as
sophisticated and plausible as Primer’s. And maybe there is an
honest discussion to be had in the time travel department, but the reason such
a discussion becomes so utterly pointless is its alarmingly distracting
presence when dissecting a film. Sometimes logistics isn't the issue, nor the
focus. Sometimes it’s a backdrop, and sometimes it’s a gimmick—in Safety
Not Guaranteed’s case, it’s a character enhancer.
Despite the closing seconds of Safety Not Guaranteed featuring
Darius (Aubrey Plaza) and Kenneth (Mark Duplass) zapping themselves back to
2001, every moment of the film is much more concerned with the prospect of time
travel—the idea of time travel. Or, more specifically, the loss of
time. Every character in this film (excluding Arnau, who’s really just an
extension of Jeff’s beleaguered past) deals with the inescapable stamp of time.
And more importantly, it’s these characters maturity regarding the illusion
of recapturing lost time that comes to define them as human beings more than anything else.
It’s quite sad to read Your Tango’s “review” of Safety Not Guaranteed—if
not only for reaffirming that the entire publication is a mindless collage of
insipid and shallow writing, but also for reaffirming how deeply the logistics
of time travel have come to outweigh the meaning of time
travel. While Amanda Green and Natalie Gontcharova dissect whether or not
Darius agrees to the journalism assignment to “find love from the beginning” or
is looking for “something more interesting to do than menial office errands,”
the actual reason is quite clear: however accepting of her past her
disinterested demeanor lets on, a small part of Darius—despite not believing in
time travel—wishes to amend history.
It’s important to abandon any legitimate chance of time travel
occurring in Safety Not Guaranteed. Much like Darius, Jeff (Jake M.
Johnson), and Arnau (Karan Soni) observe him, Kenneth is to be viewed as a
wacko. It seems essential to discount time travel, as the presence and
unattainable reach of time travel shakes these characters to the very core.
Darius, sensible through her wry observations and hardened mindset, approaches
Kenneth with a degree of caution. Not wholly because she’s skeptical of
Kenneth’s sanity, but because—as seen in the moment where the assignment is
announced—she’s intrigued by the possibility of time travel. Despite being
completely logical in regards to the possibility of time travel, she is
actually quite immature about the concept in relation to Kenneth. Kenneth, who
we’ll soon come to realize has indeed time traveled and saved another woman’s
life, is sure of himself. Despite how crazy he seems, he’s surer of his
abilities and goals through time travel than either Darius or Jeff.
We can take Jeff and observe how immature he really is in comparison
to Kenneth. Completely convinced time traveling is a sham and that Kenneth is a
nutjob, Jeff has a much more unhealthy attachment to the past than Kenneth. We
see this when Jeff reveals his true intentions for visiting Kenneth’s small
town: in order to recapture “the one who got away”, Liz (Jenica Bergere). Despite
craving the past, Jeff provides himself an excuse to shy away from Liz upon
seeing her, claiming she has become plump. However unsophisticated it may be,
the moment he reveals Liz “isn’t as fat as I thought” is the moment we see him
giving in to the past. It comes following a nudge from Arnau, whom Jeff sees as
an opportunity to relive his lost years. So when Jeff puts himself out there
for Liz and is subsequently rejected, his alcohol-soaked twilight adventure
with Arnau, two young women, and a VERY emo boy can be seen as a rather sad
attempt to recapture his Liz fantasy. Nudging Arnau to simply have sex with the
girl, we see that Jeff isn’t the man who asked Liz to move into his home in
Seattle—he’s the guy who fucked Liz on prom night and immediately moved on with
his life. However much he wants to change, Jeff's past mistakes have more or less cemented his flailing and unbecoming personality, with no chance of going back in time and solving problems that plague his present. But Arnau, being infinitely more mature than Jeff at his age, relishes
in the moment, portraying an individual that perhaps won’t live in the past
like Jeff, but embrace it romantically.
Darius isn’t immature in terms of her own personality, but in
regards to her experience with time travel. Well, in terms of dealing with the past. Still blaming
herself for her mother’s death, the tiny part of her who lit up upon hearing
Kenneth’s newspaper advertisement hasn’t quite abandoned the notion of
remedying her past mistakes. However Kenneth, probably once much like Darius,
used time travel to save Belinda (Kristen Bell). Yet to be discovered by
Darius, Kenneth experienced that fixing the past doesn’t necessarily fix the
present (something Jeff learned firsthand). Saving the life of the girl Kenneth
had a crush-from-a-distance on by sacrificing his own namesake (through
crashing his car through her boyfriend’s home) proved to be his version of
remedying the past—a much more admirable method than Jeff's, to say the least.
Kenneth’s reasoning for time traveling, much like Darius’, is completely
unselfish. Upon saving Belinda, Kenneth shrouded himself from her, to the point
where he didn’t entirely know if he had saved her life. And after a quick background
check on Darius, choosing to travel to 2001 was Kenneth’s gift to Darius.
Whereas Jeff approaches time with a brute mindset, Kenneth understands time is
a precious, fleeting substance that must be handled with care.
Both director Colin Trevorrow and his screenwriting collaborator
Derek Connolly (for both their big screen debuts) exhibit a similar sense of
maturity in their approach to time travel. Often times a means of securing
redemption or removing a fish from water, time travel in Safety Not Guaranteed is an unattainable and wholly sought after
phenomenon; a crippling desire to remedy the past; a strive to be a better
human being. Despite Primer’s
sophisticated and scientific approach towards time travel, it seems that
humanity will always reign supreme regarding the ethics and sheer idea of time travel, making these
filmmakers’ approach towards its effect on the characters all the more
poignant. While the phrase “Safety Not Guaranteed” conveys a sense of violence and the danger of one’s
safety, we see that it really carries a double meaning: everyone wishes to
travel back in time, but rarely do we think of the repercussions. Whether it’s
being denied by a past fling, attaching yourself to past mistakes, or
releasing the love of your life, no scientific principle can prepare you for
the actuality and consequence of (literally) confronting yourself.
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