Written and directed by Daniel Schechter
Starring Justin Long, Kate Berlant, Lynn Cohen, Fran Drescher, Becky Ann Baker and Richard Schiff
Running time: 1 hour and 33 minutes
Unrated: contains language and sexual situations

by Audrey Callerstrom

How wonderful is Justin Long? I don’t know if we even deserve him.

He donates all of the proceeds from his Cameo to charity. He lives with his brother. On his Instagram stories, he’s often seen providing voices for animals (turtles, deer, a chamaeleon). When he had long quarantine hair and a mustache, he created a character called “Emo Teen” that cracks me up. There’s whatever he’s doing here. He knows his level of fame and embraces it. He doesn’t saturate his social media with sponsored posts. He just hangs out with his brother, does a podcast and observes the miracles of turtle birth. A friend of mine once described him as “Keanu Reeves’s goofball cousin,” and I think that’s pretty apt.

It’s because of Long’s charm that Safe Spaces (aka After Class) is an easy watch, even if it’s forgettable. Safe Spaces is one of those indie drama/comedies where a cast of people get together simply because they all get along with each other. It’s not a particularly compelling or personal story, or at least it never feels that way. Long plays Josh Cohn, an adjunct creative writing professor in New York City. Josh is a bit of a manchild, 38 and still struggling to pay rent. He lives with his aloof Italian girlfriend (Silvia Morigi) and his sarcastic sister, Jackie (comedian Kate Berlant, Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood). In traditional “here is where the family comes together” fashion, a la The Big Sick, the Cohens reunite as their grandmother (Lynn Cohn) approaches her last days in the hospital.

The casting here is on point. Berlant and Long have great sibling chemistry, often excluding their third sibling, David (Michael Godere), who is older and married with kids. Lynn Cohen (perhaps best known as Magda from Sex and the City) as their grandmother is underdeveloped. So, watching her struggle in her last days doesn’t carry the emotional weight it could. An underused Fran Drescher delights in a couple scenes as Josh’s mother. Holding an iPad and not knowing how to end a FaceTime call, she yells, “WHAT DO I PRASS?!” Josh’s father (Richard Schiff, The West Wing) has since remarried and has a bratty child with a woman his children all dislike. The film follows Josh navigating the dynamic his dying grandmother has on his family, as well as the criticism he faces at school after pressuring a young woman to reveal a sexual story. While he assumes that he’s helping a student tell a greater truth, a sexual assault victim in the class finds this triggering, and students start dropping his class.

The story about his classroom is stronger, but it couldn’t be its own film. Writer/director Daniel Schechter (Life of Crime, Supporting Characters) staggers through some of these scenes. We side with the young girl and Josh’s initial defensive response doesn’t serve him well, either. But an altercation with the young girl’s friends at a restaurant seems to drop some hints about how “kids today” are combative and self-righteous. Why not just invest more time developing the family story? This is a group of capable actors. Instead we get maybe two scenes with Drescher. I enjoyed watching Jackie and Josh tease and riff on each other, and a tender moment as Josh’s mother insists that he take home some of his grandmother’s possessions. But the two storylines don’t work alongside each other. A running joke involving how Josh slept with David’s nanny, who later quit isn’t particularly funny and a little dated. I love watching Long, who in addition to having such a joyful social media presence, is also a solid actor. But the two storylines in Safe Spaces don’t blend, and it keeps its characters at arm’s length. There are small moments of truth, and it’s pleasant, but it feels superficial.

You can check it out for yourself now On Demand or streaming on Kanopy or Starz.