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Safety Not Guaranteed is one of those blandly smug indie films that suddenly turn cloyingly earnest in the end, wanting to play it both ways. Granted, I found some of the tone and treatment of Mark Duplass’s character to be generally questionable throughout, turning him from a deeply emotionally damaged man to just a quirky eccentric by the end being the main offender. But damn if I didn’t stick it out for Aubrey Plaza’s pleasingly acerbic and tender lead performance.
Perhaps my biggest problem with Safety Not Guaranteed is that ending, which tosses out the main thrust of the film up to that point: “You can’t go back.” As the film neared its conclusion I began to have a sinking feeling in my stomach that they were going to abandon everything they had built up to that point and make the time travel actually work. They did, and I think the film’s easy out of a happy ending was a betrayal of the emotionally grounded narrative up to that point. But is it really a happy ending? There’s a brighter future standing in front of them, but they can’t see past their specific hurts to acknowledge that.
