Jeff, Who Lives at Home
This is the second film I’ve watched by Jay and Mark Duplass, and I’m starting to really work for me. The first film of theirs I watched, the 2010 film “Cyrus,” was a little too creepy psychologically speaking to work with me. Their newest film, however, definitely struck a chord with me, and definitely took me by surprise considering the trailer made it look like your typical family dramedy about a slacker family member (in this case, Jeff, played by the emotionally vulnerable Jason Segal) who needs a good kick in the ass to get his life started.
If “Cyrus” proved anything, though, it’s that the Duplass Brothers are anything but typical, and they subvert expectations at every turn in this hilarious and painful comedy. The film starts as Jeff speaks into a tape recorder with his thoughts on the movie “Signs.” Yes, the 2002 Mel Gibson thriller. He admires the way it turns coincidence and nuances into something akin to destiny. That same sense of destiny will come into play at every turn as one event leads to another when Jeff goes to Home Depot to get supplies to fix his mother’s closet door for her birthday. His mother is played by Susan Sarandon, who also finds herself taken aback by a coworker’s flirtations; it’s been so long since she’s been in the dating field (her husband, and Jeff and brother Pat’s father, died in 1995). She has been long exasperated by her sons, who each have seemed to move away from her over the years, and are each in a bit of malaise– have I mentioned that Pat (Ed Helms) is having issues with his wife (Judy Greer)? Yeah, it’s that kind of movie.
The Duplass Brothers appear to deal in archetypes, but their interest is in capturing genuine human nature, something that became clear with time in “Cyrus,” and is evident from the get-go here, making it even more surprising when Jeff turns out to be the most “together” piece of his family, even if he is feeling unsure about whether his “destiny” in life will ever come. The actors all go for the heart of their characters, even when the laughs they illicit stick in the throat. But that’s just another quirk of being in Duplassland. When it comes to “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” I’ll gladly visit their unique comic world anytime.
