Jeff Lubeck

Safety Not Guaranteed is a pleasing surprise of a film that can be thoroughly enjoyed between the hangover from summer films purporting to be blockbusters and the overload of Late fall films campaigning on the premise they are of Oscar lineage.

Set and actually filmed in Washington State (hey there’s a concept), Safety Not Guaranteed takes a cleaver premise and runs with for all 86 minutes. New comers Director Colin Trevorrow and Writer Derek Connolly do more with $750,000 than most others accomplish with $100 million.  A strong part of that success of this film can be attributed to a smart script that develops each of the characters and their own storyline and the strong performances by the cast.  The leads, Aubrey Plaza (Funny People) and Mark Duplass (People Like Us) have a great onscreen connection.  Plaza, like comedienne Kristen Wiig, is superb at deadpan looks and can play the “plain girl who cannot get dates” despite real-life looks that will steal a guy’s heart.

Safety Not Guaranteed tells a story that is easily questioned at to its vaildity by absoutely must followed to its conclusion to be fully realized and enjoyed. If you are a fan of light- hearted comedies, Safety Not Guaranteed is worth every minute of your time.

Side notes:

Its all about location, location, location.  Are there any films where the shooting location was part of your everyday life, close to where you lived or worked?

From 1990-2000 it felt as if every film made was set in Seattle but actually filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia.  A few were exceptions such as; The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Georgia, 10 Things I Hate About You were filmed in the neighborhood of Magnolia in Seattle – where Linda and I owned a home.  One scene in Safety Not Guaranteed (a visit to interview Belinda) was set at a house and on a street about a block from our former house.

The Wedding scene (and bee sting scene) in 10 was shot in All Saints Church in Beverly Hill’s CA where Linda and I took our Marriage instructions while living in that fine community 30+ years ago (we were married in Linda’s home town of Mt. Pleasant MI).

The Athletic Club and aerobic scenes in the absolutely horrible Perfect (1985) were shot our athletic club at the end of our street; The Beverly Hills Sports Connection.

The pan shot (from a helicopter) of Grosse Pointe Michigan in the film Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) and the drive down Lakeshore Boulevard in Gran Torino (2008) both included the street and neighborhood of my childhood home (Renaud).

The Robert Zemeckis film Flight is a solid production that portrays how humans can use almost every means possible to flee from the truth.  The fact that the film starring Denzel Washington and Kelly Riley involves aspects of aviation could be argued is a merely a coincidence.

When compared against Zemeckis’ best serious works – Forest Gump, Contact, Cast Away – or high energy adventures – Used Cars, Romancing The Stone, Back To The Future, Flight ranks as good but not superb.  This may be simply because the roles and performance by the lead character’s in Flight overwhelm the back-story and supporting characters.  And, all of Zemeckis’ best works have a wonderful back-story accompanied by a plethora of strong roles and performances by supporting characters.

The film industry has tried to present stories about addiction and its possible implications a number of times and ways. Flight presents how two people deal with and or run away from the truth about an addiction to alcohol and drugs in a credible fashion.

However, I feel 2011’s Shame (Sex) starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan or 1988’s Clean and Sober (Drug and Alcohol) starring Michael Keaton, Kathy Baker and Morgan Freeman or 1997’s Crash (Accidents) by David Cronenburg starring James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Kara Unger and Rosanna Arquette are more compelling and leave a more lasting impact than Flight.  It could be argued that these three examples are simply too harsh to the point of being disturbing (all left me unnerved for at least a week after viewing) and Flight is actually more effective because it provides more of a Hollywood feel good ending.

I do believe one great take away from Flight is highly compelling and true to life.  People like the character’s portrayed by Washington and Riley do not view themselves as victims and understand they made the choice to address the addiction before it was made for them.  They understand their previous actions may leave some situations and relationship beyond repair, but reparation of themselves is occurring and may extend to others in their life.