JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a shaggy dog story with a shaggy dog performance by Jason Segel in the title role (he’s referred to as Sasquatch at one point in the film and comes across as a hairless Chewbacca). It’s a feel good movie that gives feel good movies a good name. It’s written and directed by the Duplass brothers (Jay and Mark) who are earlier practitioners of what is called “mumblecore” films (low budget indies who tend to use unknown actors who have a reputation of mumbling--since they don’t have the training not to, I suppose). The duo made their screen debut with the Puffy Chair (during which I wanted to shoot myself in order to end my agony, a reaction that’s not unusual for me when it comes to mumblecore) and ever since have been making solid strides in getting away from their origins, starting with the fun film Baghead. After that, they made a tremendous artistic leap with the romantic comedy Cyrus. I was hoping for an even bigger leap with Jeff…, but though that leap isn’t there (the movie never really tries to be any more than what it is), it’s still a charming little film that should win most people over. It has as its theme and philosophy the idea of letting destiny be your guide. Jeff (who lives at home, appropriately enough, in his mother’s basement) is told by an infomercial to pick up a phone just when said phone rings; when Jeff does, it’s a wrong number for a Kevin; subsequently while on a bus, Jeff sees a teenager with the name Kevin on his basketball shirt; Jeff follows him and thus is set off on a series of adventures that entangles him first with his estranged brother who is having a midlife crisis and thinks his wife is cheating on him (played by Ed Helms, who is doing the Edward Norton thingy of wearing a goatee so we take him more seriously that if he’s clean shaven, as in his movie Cedar Rapids) and then with his mother who feels the world is passing her by until she gets a mysterious paper airplane mash note (Jeff’s mother is played by the wonderful Susan Sarandon who has graduated from leading roles to significant supporting ones as actors these days often do once they pass a certain age, one of the unfortunate results of the studio system collapsing). The basic farce structure, in which the last person you want or expect to run into is always the person you do, grows in increasingly frenetic plot turns until it reaches the moving climax that proves Jeff’s philosophy of life is the correct one. If the movie has any sort of real flaw, and it’s probably trifling to bring it up, it’s Segel, who is perhaps just a bit too shaggy a dog and laid back in the role; one may not notice because of the strong casting around him (Helms, Sarandon and Judy Greer as the possible straying wife; if you don’t have Muppets for a supporting cast, these will more than get the job done); Segel may be a tad lethargic, but no one else is. The sweet music score is by Michael Andrews. For those of you who care, the movie also answers the burning question, whatever happened to Rae Dawn Chong, who is perhaps even lovelier now than when she was an up and comer.