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There are lots of quirky romantic comedies out there playing with the romcom formula.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes it hits a ground ball to barely get on base.

I really enjoyed SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (2012), mentioned here by the Rev (http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,123126.msg475469.html#msg475469) who gave it 3 out of 5.  I can see that rating, though I'm going to go a touch higher.

SNG had shades of HAPPY ACCIDENTS (2000, Vincent D'Onofrio and Marissa Tomei, directed by Brad Anderson) in the plot: guy that appears crazy talks of time travel.

The thing I like about these off-the-wall RomCom attempts is just that - they are attempts to stand typical tropes on their head.  In SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, we don't get a 'meet cute,' we get an investigative reporter or sorts (really an intern) digging dirt on the subject of a story.  The womanizing jerk is really a dude trying to capture the magic of his first love and tries to 'pay forward' his life's wisdom (in this one respect) to a socially awkward intern.

The story is compelling enough to have kept me interested to see how it pans out and the characters, not always likable, were interesting and at least gave us hints of the third dimension...something too many Hollywood formulaic romance movies spectacularly fail to do.  I really liked the Darius character; she rocked...mostly.  To add just the right amount of "real human" to the character, I could not get past the fact that the premise of her knowing the subject of the story was a lie to him.

One thing that really struck me about this story was the recurring theme of "first love" or at least first "time."  It was about beginnings, and that magic, often never recaptured later in life.  This movie explored some real human emotion without getting too sappy about it.

I liked it.  3.5/5 from me....would almost go 4/5 with a little tighter execution in some respects.  Positives for me are weird in the right ways, interesting enough story (beyond the RomCom elements), comedy worth a chuckle or two and a very believable female lead.

Going to watch this film with my spouse, glad to know its not that bad  :twirl: