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One of the primary reasons for my surprise is that the focus of Jeff's life is something that makes me nuts. I believe our intuition is monstrously important, but we can't wait around for the universe to hand us a blueprint. It had its moments people will critique ad nauseam of course, but it is a great story, well told, with a cast that delivered.
All you have to do is to follow the economy of characters in that office and you'll figure it out long before it is revealed. The movie was filmed in New Orleans, but the story takes place in Baton Rouge. Directors said that Jeff is a character that really sacrificed a lot by not getting a regular 9 to 5 job and getting married.
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Set in Louisiana it follows the life one day of Jeff a 30 year old live at home slacker stoner who doesn't have a job and beat it all he lives like the crypt keeper as he stays in the basement! Aside from that the hard working mom of Pat and Jeff Sharonfinds an unexpected and crazy surprise at work with her boss Carol(sexy 80's screen siren Rae Dawn Chong). Mark and Jay Duplass have crafted an affecting drama with shades of comedy. Much like CYRUS, the story revolves around flawed people trying to relate to others who are just as dysfunctional. However with JEFF, there is a sense of heart that wasn’t nearly as sincere in their previous effort.
That isn’t much to hang a hat on, but filmmakers Jay and Mark Duplass decide to anyway. The writing-directing brothers are usually interested in the small stuff of everyday, but perhaps they’ve gone a little too small here. Without giving anything away, this is a really great film about trust, communication, and following your heart. It is definitely on my list of favorites and I will be watching other Duplass films. We hear REAL people talk, not one dimensional cyphers, and they're warm and witty, and we like all of them. These are the sort of individuals I want at my funeral (But let's save that discussion for another day) We care about their fates, and the many snarky exchanges make it laugh-out-loud funny too.
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The main character (played by The Muppets' Jason Segel) smokes pot, and his brother drinks beer and whisky. Characters shout at one another fairly often and use strong language, including "f--k" and "s--t." There's a fair bit of sex talk and sexual innuendo, and two women share a tender first kiss. "You ever feel like your waiting for forever to find out what your destiny is and when you do it's not really that exciting?" After receiving a phone call from a wrong number Jeff thinks that the call has a deeper reason. What starts as a simple trip to a hardware store begins to evolve and change the lives of everyone Jeff comes into contact with, including his brother Pat . This is another movie that is almost nothing like the preview. While this did have some funny parts in it I found this movie to be more sweet and heartfelt then I expected.
This time around, the cast is in place, but the deliberately bare-bones plot fails to coalesce into anything resembling a satisfying story. Jason Segel is one of my favorite actors, just for the levity and warmth he brings to any film he's in but this is my first time watching a Duplass brothers' film I have ever seen. The characters, especially the one portrayed by Ed Helms, are believable and developed so well they sort of take on significance away from or outside of the story and its conflicts.
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Their mother Sharon also has her own awakening, yet it is slightly predictable and sometimes feels out of step with rest of the film. No matter though, Sarandon is absolutely charming as the frustrated mother who finds she has a secret admirer at her work. It is also nice to see the incredibly talented Rae Dawn Chong as Sharon’s co-worker Carol. Box office will benefit from the high-profile cast, though the film may suffer ho-hum word-of-mouth from viewers expecting more laughs given these stars. Jeff is a thirty year old man with a puncheon for the film Signs and lives in his mother Sharon's basement. His older brother Pat still lives close by with his wife Linda .
Susan Sarandon is faultless as the mother looking for a sign of her own as she suffers bleak corporate office cubicle. Most of these characters are facing life/relationship problems, but Jason Segel brings a lovable, quirky dorkiness to a film that inevitably carries lots of heart. It's much more like a typical Duplass Brothers film--with realistic but highly flawed characters that you grow to like in spite of themselves. However, unlike one of their films, they apparently impressed someone with money, as this one has major stars and obviously cost much more to make.
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A few minutes later he intercepts a wrong number from an caller vehement about the importance of finding “Kevin” and interprets that as a sign intended for him. Amid a flurry of coincidence, Linda’s fidelity is thrown into question and the sparring brothers end up on an odyssey to investigate. Jeff , the protagonist of Jeff Who Lives at Home thinks that way. He is just past 30, unemployed, lives in his mother's basement, smokes pot and hasn't had a girlfriend since high school. He watches the 2002 thriller Signs over and over again to reiterate his theory that nothing just happens, not even when he gets a phone call from a guy asking for someone named Kevin.
Probably not, because thanks to his work here, it is a reminder that sometimes innocence and naivety are still important in life. JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME is certainly good company to keep, especially thanks to its just over eighty minute running time. The funny thing is, as worried as Jeff's mother and big brother are about him, they can't see that they're every bit as adrift and unfulfilled as he is. Eventually, it becomes obvious , that maybe those signs he's following -- and that they're scoffing at -- could be leading them all somewhere.
Feckless 30-year-old Jeff , a firm believer in synchronicity, heads out to buy some wood glue for his long-suffering mother , only to become embroiled in the marital breakdown of his brother and sister-in-law . John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, and Marisa Tomei co-star in this Duplass brothers' comedy about a young man's obsessive attachment to his mother. And so a seemingly simple errand, a jaunt to The Home Depot, turns into a Rube Goldberg contraption of a journey -- one sign leading to another, leading to yet another -- as Jeff takes a series of destiny-hunting detours. Jason Segel and Ed Helms, in the New Orleans-shot 'Jeff, Who Lives at Home.' The latest comedy from the locally raised Duplass brothers, it opens today . The central tenet of Jeff's philosophy — that everything happens for a reason — could come across as facile, pseudo-inspirational claptrap.
Pleasant comedy-drama about slacker Jeff , a thirty-year-old who still lives in his mother's basement because he keeps thinking signs will show him his destiny. One day he believes he's following one of those signs and he ends up spending time with his brother who believes his wife is cheating on him. JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME isn't the flat-out comedy that the trailers want you to believe and at times I was a little surprised to see how serious it was getting. With that said, the screenplay really doesn't go for either laughs or drama as its main goal and instead it really just seems like a slice of life tale centered on a few hours in these brother's lives. I think what the film does the best is offer up some very good performances from the leads.
