We are all connected. There are no mistakes in life.
Oh?
Well Jeff thinks so and begins his adventure perplexed by a wrong number. The caller insists Jeff remember, “Kevin” as if the name itself is some sort of talisman or portent. To Jeff it is. Of course, I immediately flashed back on the period of my life in which a fellow called every single day for three weeks straight asking for “Bobby.” I finally responded, “Bobby isn’t here. Bobby doesn’t live here. Bobby wasn’t here yesterday. Bobby won’t be here tomorrow. Please stop calling me.” Clearly, I wasn’t reading the Signs.
Oh yes, Jeff (Jason Segel) is obsessed with the M. Night Shyamalan alien invasion adventure Signs. At some level, you gotta hand it to the Duplass brothers: nobody is making sequence films anymore and certainly nobody, but nobody, has anything nice to say about M. Night Shyamalan these days.
If Jeff is a lost soul looking for answers, his brother Pat (Ed Helms) isn’t much better. After seeing Jeff’s wrong number moment, we meet Pat plying his wife Linda (Judy Greer) with strawberry & whipped cream waffles. Mmmmmm. Why? Pat just bought a Porsche for the “good of the family.” Linda meets this news by spraying the waffles and an entire bottle of ketchup atop the new vehicle; it’s possible she didn’t appreciate Pat’s impulsive purchase.
Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a sequence film. After we establish the players of Jeff, Pat and their mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon), every scene leads to the next. There’s no reset or regroup. Sharon orders unemployed son Jeff to go buy wood glue. On the bus to the glue store, Jeff encounters a Kevin. Fascinated by the serendipity of the moment, he follows Kevin to a basketball game. It goes well, and even better when they arrange to smoke pot together afterwards. Then Jeff gets jacked by Kevin’s friends and ends up drifting outside Hooters where, lo-and-behold, Pat is there with the new Porsche. Do you like movies in which characters simply build upon the previous action? Do you like characters with zero responsibility to any type of employer? Do you like pretending “Kevin” is a magical word to guide your future actions? This might be your film.
At the heart of Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a relationship between two brothers, their deceased father and an intense feeling of universal connection. It can’t be lost on anybody that the film was written and directed by two brothers, Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass. I liked Jeff, but didn’t love it to the point where I wanted to research the relationship between the Duplass brothers and their own father; I’ll leave that to somebody who loved this or Signs, another three-star film in my book.
Jeff also included a meaty role for Rae Dawn Chong, the first time I remember her since Commando. She did earn my research attention, but only to point out that I really haven’t remembered her in anything since Commando.
Rated R, 83 Minutes
D: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
W: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Genre: Serendipity
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Dreamers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The employed
