Safety Not Guaranteed

Here are some of my thoughts on this low budget film starring one of my favorite actresses from Parks and Recreation, an interesting NBC sitcom with some obvious influences from The Office and Aubrey Plaza's deadpan humor. Safety Not Guaranteed is an endearing and interesting film on growth, love, the journey, and the wonder of science fiction/time travel. The film is largely about personal and emotional growth, wonder, and redemption. I think the characters are mostly believable, although the Indian caricature was not great. What they should've done is switch the white jock-type character with the Indian virginal nerd, that would be a good stereotype reversal and would've added more depth to the sweet and thoughtful humor of the film. Also, partly due to a low budget, the film adopts a quasi-minimalist approach to music in the background, character development and careful dialogue. I wouldn't say it's amazing, but the film is certainly interesting and has some serious thematic content with unique observations on the search for identity and maturation we all strive for, you know, existential angst, confusion, and learning to make future changes in our lives by taking agency, being vulnerable and open. When I shared these sentiments regarding the film on a social networking site, some childish, inane responses tried to claim the film was "indie-cliche" but the landscape, apparent emotional depth and meaning to the film's characters in this journey, and the use of archetypes is hardly 'cliche.' Anyway, different strokes for different folks, I guess. There is a reason Netflix is successful, providing niche film audiences with low budget work such as Safety Not Guaranteed featuring quirky and lovable actresses such as Plaza.