Safety Not Guaranteed

A Seattle magazine writer (Jake M. Johnson) and his two interns (Aubrey Plaza, Karan Soni) investigate a mysterious loner (Mark Duplass) who has placed a want ad seeking a partner in a time-travel experiment (“Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed."). In the process, one of the interns (Plaza) finds herself drawn to the man, and begins to think he may not be such a crackpot after all. Written by Derek Connolly and directed with deadpan wryness by Colin Trevorrow, the movie has a kind of standard Sundance Channel roughness in its look and style, but otherwise it’s hard to pin down: Rom-com? Sci-fi? Satire? Ultimately, it seems hardly to matter, because the movie fairly bulges with quirky hangdog charm—virtually a four-character movie, with Plaza and Duplass meshing particularly well.