Jeff, Who Lives At Home
Directed by Jay and Mark Duplass
Paramount Vantage
Jeff (Jason Segel) loves the movie “Signs,” especially for its ability to present to viewers a world in which all actions are connected in some higher way. It’s a cosmic order that the man, living in his mother Sharon’s (Susan Sarandon) basement and clearly still affected by his father’s death some undisclosed time in the past, is desperately looking for. Such is the mindset of Jeff, the titular character in “Jeff, Who Lives At Home.”
Jeff gets a phone call from someone looking for a Kevin. And though the caller clearly has the wrong number, Jeff begins looking for this mystery Kevin, as though it is something he is meant to do.
His travels lead him to his brother Pat (Ed Helms), who is having some serious marital problems with his wife Linda (Judy Greer), made no smaller by Pat’s rogue decision to buy a Porsche instead of saving for a house and children. When Jeff and Pat see Linda with a mystery man, they both suspect the worst and set out to find out if she is having an affair. Most of the rest of the movie is a very understated look at one day in the lives of these four relatively unhappy people.
And though the subject of the film is not itself uplifting, Jeff even tells Pat that he’s extremely happy during one of the most touching scenes in the film ““ a heart-to-heart conversation with both adult brothers sitting clothed in an empty bathtub. The scene is both adult and heartbreakingly innocent, and it will stick with viewers for a while.
But while Jeff and Pat’s story is relatively enjoyable to watch, the plot line surrounding Sharon and her friend and co-worker Carol (Rae Dawn Chong) doesn’t quite work, either because the film did not take enough time to really dig into their relationship or because Sharon is a relatively shallow and static character, despite Sarandon’s acting skill.
The real star of this film is Helms, who turns in a brilliantly vulnerable performance as Pat. And though there are certainly comedic elements to his character, the star of “The Hangover” is at his best when he is channeling both the pain and hope Pat harbors for his relationship with Linda.
The movie ties up all loose ends ends quite neatly in the final 10 minutes of the film, though the finale isn’t quite in keeping with the meandering and subtle tone of the rest of the movie.
It’s hard to say, one way or the other, if Jay and Mark Duplass’s film accomplishes its goal as a film. But while it may be difficult to love “Jeff, Who Lives At Home,” it’s just as difficult to dislike it.