I was just reading end of year reviews of best films and came upon this undiscovered gem; mainly the result of me losing faith in the Hollywood machine this year and seeing fewer films than at any time in recent memory. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) is not an epic film; in fact, little happens. Unless, of course, you consider a cynical man trying to reconnect with an old flame, a geeky college student losing his virginity and a lonely young woman meeting a man she fancies who may very well be a lunatic. Oh and did I mention the possibility of time travel? The film is the sort of early Wes Anderson meets David O. Russell fare some of us just wish there was more of in recent years. Too often films fall back on tired formulas and cheap jokes instead of trusting their actors and writers to be clever in a nuanced way (The Other Guys and 30 Minutes or Less come to mind).
The star here is the quixotic Aubrey Plaza, who plays Seattle Magazine intern Darius (who may or may not be a virgin and/or lesbian). She agrees to accompany writer Jeff (Jake Johnson) and nerdy intern Arnau (Karan Soni) on a short journey to seek out the person who put out an ad for a space travel partner. They soon find the man, Kenneth (Mark Duplass), who is an odd grocery store clerk. Darius meets Kenneth and they start their training for the mission, falling for each other along the way. A lovely mixture of taut humor, imaginative dreaming and budding love then intermingle to create a film that offers much more than most big budget projects these days. The ending is a risky venture for its parred-down ambitions, but it somehow pulls it off, much as I believe Wes Anderson's latest Moonrise Kingdom did earlier this year. Quirky love stories simply fit better with our current affective moment, the hipsters minus the irony providing a space for true interpellative connection to ensue. And it might just launch Plaza to the peak as the new hipster dream girl, a more compelling, empowering and less commodified prospect than aging Zooey Deshanel.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment