Jeff, Who Lives At Home

Jeff, Who Lives At Home
2012
15
Written and directed by Jay and Mark Duplass
Starring Jason Segel as Jeff
              Ed Helms as Pat
              Susan Sarandon as Sharon
       and Judy Greer as Linda












The mumbling indie comedy is a cottage industry in and of itself, and, just as you can rely on an action film following the Bay school of film-making to be filled with explosions and incomprehensibly bad writing, you can rely on a studio like Fox Searchlight to put out at least 5 twee, cutesy, pigeon-toed mumbling comedies per year.  Jeff, Who Lives at Home, as you may have guessed is one of those films.

Jeff (Segel) is a 30 year old pothead living in his mother's basement, drifting through life aimlessly, and living his life by a philosophy derived from the film Signs.  The film actually opens with his description of the events of the film.  It comes across as a little on the nose, and it's not the last time the film could be accused of that.  Anyway, Jeff's mother, Sharon (Sarandon) has tasked Jeff to go and get some wood glue to fix the airing cupboard.  On this pilgrimage, he decides to follow his destiny, centred around the recurring name 'Kevin', and ends up trying to help his brother, Pat (Helms), save his ailing marriage through all manner of mumbling indie mishaps.

I know that I sound like I am being very hard on the film, and that I find the style of it to be a big turn off.  I actually did enjoy watching it, it just didn't feel ambitious in any way.  The Duplass brothers may have constructed a pleasant comedy with likeable characters, but that's the problem.  It doesn't feel like it was created through any real drive or artistic inspiration.  It felt like it was built using a D.I.Y. manual for the sort of films that makor studios love putting out and pretending they were surprise hits when they take off.

The script is quite nice, but wholly predictable.  It doesn't push any boundaries, or challenge any taboos, but it's not the sort of film that sets out to do that either, so it would be unfair for me to punish the film on that basis.  All round, there are really great performances across the board, especially from Ed Helms, who, considering his bread and butter tend to be very broad roles in things like The Office and The Hangover, gives a refreshingly subtle showing here.  Jason Segel and Susan Sarandon also play their roles well, but neither really seems to be pushing themselves.

Which is a good summation for the film, really.  It's nice, and perfectly enjoyable, but it lacks ambition, it's predictable, and it doesn't really linger in the memory for very long either.  And, whilst the film might try to show that it all has a point in the end, it does just come across as twee pointlessness, almost bordering on smugness, especially considering that the film lacks any real feeling of surprise throughout. Enjoyable, but certainly not an essential comedy film.

3.5/5