Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED  (2012)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Colin Trevorrow
    Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Karan Soni, 
    Jake Johnson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Lauren Carlos
A lot of low-budget, independent movies, you end up admiring the ambition more than the result. This one's an exception, a sweet little oddball romance about a guy who claims he can time travel and a girl who may or may not be crazy enough to join him. There's a distracting subplot - a couple of them - but as long as the picture stays with its two leads, it's a low-key gem. Plaza has a way of dragging out her vowels that could drive you nuts, if her performance wasn't so winning. She has a real gift for deadpan comedy, and her smile, when she does smile, lights up the screen. Duplass plays it even straighter than that, as a geek who grew older but never grew up, and whose eccentric behavior could be a mark of genius, or a symptom of madness, or both. The ending, under the circumstances, is perfect. You'd like to see more of these two characters, but it's hard not to feel good about where they end up. And wherever they're off to from here on out, you wish them well.