There is a moment in Safety Not Guaranteed where Aubrey Plaza's quirky character asks Mark Duplass' even quirkier character, "Is that a guitar?" while sitting in front of a campfire after a romantic day of mutual quirkiness. Jaw agape, knowing exactly what was about to happen, I had to pause the movie and consider whether everything up to this point had been trying to make some kind of ironic statement about the romcom genre. Sadly, by the end, I realized it was meant as a genuine moment.

Safety Not Guaranteed deserves the tiniest bit of credit for trying to shoehorn some superficially sci-fi elements into an otherwise mind-numbingly cookie-cutter romcom plot, and there were moments of promise in the subplot between the characters played by Jake Johnson and Karan Soni. Other than that, there is nothing of substance in the film that hasn't been said in movies like Sweet Home Alabama and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. I am left utterly befuddled after reading that it has won awards for its script and is currently sitting at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. If this is what passes as acceptable nowadays, please let me on your boat, Mr. Duplass.

As an afterthought, I am convinced that there is a post-effect in the most popular film editing software that cuts off a fraction of each side of the frame and then proceeds to mechanically jiggle the FOV to emulate how a nervous robot would hold a camera. It was noticeable in Zero Dark Thirty and is downright obnoxious in Safety Not Guaranteed. There are instances where shaky-cam can be appropriate, but as an increasingly pervasive stylistic trend, I hope it dies a quick but painful death, and soon.