Safety Not Guaranteed

There is a specific kind of magic in a movie that knows it has no money and simply refuses to let that be a problem. When I first sat down to watch Safety Not Guaranteed, I was squeezed into a middle seat on a cross-country flight next to a guy who was intensely highlighting a technical manual for industrial lawnmowers. For some reason, watching him obsess over gear ratios made the low-fi, DIY spirit of this film click into place before the first act was even over. It’s a movie about the fringes of belief, and it’s arguably the smartest thing Colin Trevorrow ever did before he was handed the keys to the Jurassic World dinosaur pens.

The premise is ripped straight from a real-life "weird news" snippet: a guy places a classified ad looking for a partner to go back in time with him. He warns that safety is not guaranteed and specifies that you must "bring your own weapons." This leads a cynical magazine staff—led by a delightfully bitter Jake Johnson and an intern-turned-sleuth played by Aubrey Plaza—into the woods of Washington state to find out if the guy is a visionary or just another local eccentric with a garage full of stolen hardware.

The Deadpan Heart of the Pacific Northwest

At the time, Aubrey Plaza was mostly known as the human personification of a heavy sigh on Parks and Recreation. Seeing her as Darius here was a revelation; she doesn't just play "bored," she plays "guarded." When she meets Kenneth (Mark Duplass), the grocery clerk who claims to have cracked the temporal code, she’s there to mock him. But Mark Duplass plays Kenneth with such a startling, unblinking sincerity that the movie shifts from a snarky indie comedy into something much more fragile.

I’ve always felt that the fanny pack Kenneth wears should be registered as a supporting character, as it somehow manages to carry the weight of a thousand regrets and a few illegal lasers. Kenneth isn't a scientist; he’s a man driven by a singular, aching "what if." He’s the ultimate antidote to the 'chosen one' trope because he’s just a guy who works the dairy aisle and spends his nights training for a mission he’s not even sure will work. The chemistry between Plaza and Duplass isn't built on Hollywood sparks; it’s built on two lonely people deciding that it’s less exhausting to believe in a time machine than to keep pretending they’re okay with their current lives.

Sci-Fi on a Shoestring

From a technical standpoint, Safety Not Guaranteed is a masterclass in using "soft" science fiction to drive a character study. We don’t see flashing lights or flux capacitors for 90% of the runtime. Instead, we see the consequences of the idea. The sci-fi elements are the seasoning, not the main course. Colin Trevorrow and writer Derek Connolly knew they couldn’t compete with a Marvel budget, so they leaned into the "Mumblecore" aesthetic—natural lighting, shaky-but-stable camerawork, and a score by Ryan Miller that feels like it’s being hummed by someone sitting on a porch.

The "world-building" here happens in Kenneth’s cluttered workshop and through his paranoid rants about government agents. It’s effective because it plays on our own skepticism. As I watched, I kept switching sides: one minute I was sure Kenneth was a genius, and the next I was convinced Darius was in actual danger. This tension keeps the film from feeling like a standard "quirky" indie. It’s also worth noting that Jake Johnson’s subplot—trying to reconnect with an old flame—serves as a brilliant mirror to Kenneth’s mission. Johnson’s character is essentially a walking mid-life crisis fueled by bad haircuts, reminding us that even without a time machine, we’re all trying to fix the past.

The Ad That Launched a Career

The backstory of the film is almost as good as the script itself. The ad was actually real, written as a joke filler by John Silveira for Backwoods Home Magazine in 1997. It became an internet meme years later, which is how Connolly found it. Turning a 25-word joke into a feature film that premiered at Sundance and won a Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award is the kind of indie success story that doesn't happen much anymore in our era of pre-packaged IP.

The budget was a reported $750,000, which is basically the catering budget for a single day on a Colin Trevorrow blockbuster now. They shot the whole thing in about 24 days. You can feel that hustle in the scenes where Karan Soni (who plays the third, more reluctant intern) is trying to navigate the social hierarchy of the group. There’s a rawness to the production that feels intentional, like the film itself was assembled in a garage alongside Kenneth's machine. It captures that 2012 moment where digital cameras were finally making indie films look "real" without losing their grit.

This is a film that rewards the believers. It doesn't insult your intelligence by over-explaining the physics, nor does it take the easy way out by making Kenneth the butt of a long-winded joke. It’s a movie about the courage it takes to be weird in a world that demands you be cynical. By the time the credits rolled, I wasn't just thinking about time travel; I was thinking about what I’d bring in my own fanny pack. It’s a small film with a massive heart, and it remains the gold standard for how to make a sci-fi movie when you only have enough money for a few rolls of duct tape and a dream.