Nerdy delight in time travel

By MICHAEL O’SULLIVAN
WASHINGTON POST

“Safety Not Guaranteed” takes its title and theme from an Internet meme that made the rounds a few years ago: a purported newspaper classified ad seeking a partner in time travel.

“Must bring your own weapons,” read the original ad, which turned out to have been written as a joke by an editor with too much time on his hands. “Safety not guaranteed.”

There is a real danger in the movie based on that gag, but not the kind the ad suggests.

The risk of the quirky rom-com — which revolves around the efforts of a Seattle magazine writer and two interns to profile the guy who placed the ad — is from cuteness overload.

Fortunately, the film’s engaging and offbeat cast prevents that from happening.

Anchoring the story are Mark Duplass as Kenneth, the possibly paranoid loner who claims to have invented a time machine, and Aubrey Plaza as Darius, the intern who manages to gain Kenneth’s trust and who, over the course of the film, questions her original assumptions about his sanity.

Jake M. Johnson is suitably sleazy as Darius’s boss, Jeff, a writer whose real agenda in taking the assignment has more to do with hooking up with Liz (Jenica Bergere), an old high school flame. And Karan Soni is sweet and funny as Arnau, Darius’s nerdy and desperately virginal fellow intern.

Of the four main performers, Plaza shines the brightest. Making her debut in a cinematic leading role, the “Parks and Recreation” actress starts off with what essentially is a reprise of her television role as April, the sullen, 20-something municipal employee in a small-town recreation department.

But she quickly sheds that acerbic persona, bringing a surprising measure of heart and soul to a character who would be all too easy to play with the actress’s signature deadpan approach.