An ironic title for a movie that takes no risks. This is a perfectly competent romantic comedy that is composed of conventional elements that blend in a predictable way.
Outsider Darius meets outsider Kenneth, and the two hit it off. Full-of-Himself Jeff finally eases up on the front he’s always pushing out, but when he does that (clumsily), he doesn’t get what he wants and instead learns something about love. Uptight Indian nerd Arnau gets loosened up some as the movie progresses. Predictable.
The most engaging part of the film is the way the time travel maguffin permits the two repressed main characters to talk about themselves to each other. Recruitment, training, and preparation for the mission gives Kenneth and Darius a vocabulary to talk about their lives and pain. Both had a difficult childhood--Darius confesses that she feels guilt over her mother’s death while Kenneth still burns from being rejected as a suitor. They both deal with their problems by pushing others away but are able to talk to each other by describing their mission in going back in time.
The time travel project also works as an action-motivating plot device. Because they are preparing, Darius ad Kenneth do things like practicing with guns, raiding an office and going camping. And the mission creates some suspense because we’re pretty sure that Kenneth is a crackpot until it starts to look like there might be something real about it towards the end.
And these two main elements of the film are simultaneously resolved in the neat ending. We see the outcome of the main characters' movement towards trusting another person, while the final shot also cleverly answers the time travel question in a visual metaphor. It’s a nice ending that wraps everything up tidily.
Reflecting the two-tier movement of character arc and time-travel question, the title Safety Not Guaranteed is a double entendre. It's risky to trust another person, and it's risky to travel in time. And the title's tidy double meaning suggests how pat a film Safety Not Guaranteed is. It is fun, but it isn’t really "safety not guaranteed;" in fact, the movie does everything to guarantee the viewer’s safety.
