Safety Not Guaranteed is a nice little indie film.
The acting is fine, it moves along well and you really want to like the characters. There is an aging party boy journalist, an intern who cannot even get a side job at an Olive Garden-like restaurant, another computer geek intern who is only an intern because it will make him look “well rounded” on grad school applications. There is even a brief appearance by a sexy boss you want to a) smack or b) see naked.
Oh and there is another guy who thinks he can travel in time.
This isn’t a big film to watch or in conception. It is “little”. You want to like the characters, you kind of know who they are but there isn’t a great deal of back-story. That is likely a good thing. If director, Colin Trevorrow, had aimed for back story on one? He’d have had to do it for others too and the film would grind to a painful halt (or worse a series of such halts). The film does what it has to but doesn’t take a lot of chances. This professionalism makes an utter failure of the film unlikely but this same safe approach also means the film doesn’t wow.
The acting is fine, it moves along well and you really want to like the characters. There is an aging party boy journalist, an intern who cannot even get a side job at an Olive Garden-like restaurant, another computer geek intern who is only an intern because it will make him look “well rounded” on grad school applications. There is even a brief appearance by a sexy boss you want to a) smack or b) see naked.
Oh and there is another guy who thinks he can travel in time.
This isn’t a big film to watch or in conception. It is “little”. You want to like the characters, you kind of know who they are but there isn’t a great deal of back-story. That is likely a good thing. If director, Colin Trevorrow, had aimed for back story on one? He’d have had to do it for others too and the film would grind to a painful halt (or worse a series of such halts). The film does what it has to but doesn’t take a lot of chances. This professionalism makes an utter failure of the film unlikely but this same safe approach also means the film doesn’t wow.
Whether you like this movie might well depend on how you feel about movies; do you only care if the movie is entertaining while you are sitting there or do you want to be thinking about it after the credits roll? If the former is you then you Safety Not Guaranteed may be up your alley. If you have to have the latter probably not.
This isn’t to say this is a dumb film; it is just a modest one with modest aims. It isn’t supposed to be Citizen Kane or Inception. The film also isn’t perfect and you are left with a little bit of a hollow feeling. But that hollow feeling is part of what makes the film work. Some people may go off to some great adventures while others, whose “success” seems certain wind up disappointed. There is no great tragedy or drama here. It all comes off as an odd little slice of life. That is perfectly ok.
On the amusing front the film also seems to irritate blowhards. During the previews a gentleman bellowed loudly, and with authority, that “Leonard DiCaprio is WAY too young to play Gatsby!” (proving only that he’d never read the book). Same guy got up during the credits to loudly announce, at a similar volume, “That is the worst movie I have seen in a long time!”
Any filmmaker who can get a reaction like that out of a nitwit can be fairly sure they have achieved something.
This isn’t to say this is a dumb film; it is just a modest one with modest aims. It isn’t supposed to be Citizen Kane or Inception. The film also isn’t perfect and you are left with a little bit of a hollow feeling. But that hollow feeling is part of what makes the film work. Some people may go off to some great adventures while others, whose “success” seems certain wind up disappointed. There is no great tragedy or drama here. It all comes off as an odd little slice of life. That is perfectly ok.
On the amusing front the film also seems to irritate blowhards. During the previews a gentleman bellowed loudly, and with authority, that “Leonard DiCaprio is WAY too young to play Gatsby!” (proving only that he’d never read the book). Same guy got up during the credits to loudly announce, at a similar volume, “That is the worst movie I have seen in a long time!”
Any filmmaker who can get a reaction like that out of a nitwit can be fairly sure they have achieved something.
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