11/9/2022 0 Comments Jeff who lives at home online![]() Segel is familiar with the role - he made mid-life loserville look effortless in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where he was so defeated even his capacity for self-pity was all but extinguished. But the rest of the character is thinly drawn. Jeff's little opening mantra, like the film's soundtrack, contains the right amount of whimsy to rope the audience into rooting for him - we're waiting for the beat to pick up, for him to finally break into a run. ![]() #JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME ONLINE TV#This is all before it cuts to reveal him sitting on the toilet, and then makes the well worn journey back to the TV and couch, and where his bong lies. ![]() #JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME ONLINE MOVIE#Night Shyamalan's Signs, he thinks the movie is speaking directly to his soul, calling him into action, guiding him towards the universe's signals. His opening monologue has plenty of potential. And yet it ends up making you wish it realized its own potential to be truly original instead of going down a well-trod path, no matter how well it walks the walk.Jason Segel is Jeff, a thirty-something jobless stoner still living with his mother and lazily waiting around for his true calling. It’s sweet and amusing even given the fact that it glimpses a more inclusive direction for cinematic storytelling and still shies away from it. That Jeff gets this simple yet overlooked truth makes me wonder why it didn’t bother telling the tales of Sharon and Linda, which would have been much fresher, rather than giving us yet another young(ish) man who refuses to grow up, and finds vindication in his choice in a way that, it must be sadly said, the women do not. ![]() But mostly it’s because of Sharon’s subplot (and a bit of Linda’s), which highlights a fact that far too few movies even bother to broach: that the disaffection with ordinary life and the desire for adventure, excitement, and romance that the typical cinematic manchild embraces is not limited to cinematic manchildren. Pat’s behavior is not excusable, but it does at least say that simply doing what is expected of you isn’t enough. Part of why Jeff works is thanks to the contrast with Jeff’s brother, Pat (Ed Helms: The Hangover Part II, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard), who is ostensibly following the grownup path and yet still ends up being what can only be called a colossal dick to his wife, Linda (Judy Greer: The Descendants, Marmaduke). Even if that has nothing to do with the coincidence theme. Jeff is a fan of the film Signs, you see, which also posited a deep meaning in the everyday and in chance happenstance, but where that film is problematic with its destiny-mongering, Jeff somehow manages to be appealing. Oh, it’s not that Jeff deliberately seeks out those clues: they just get tossed in his path, all fate-like wise. This day-in-the-life story opens with Jeff receiving a wrong-number phone call from someone looking for “Kevin,” which sets the childlike Jeff off on a quest to follow all the Kevin-ish coinky-dink clues he might stumble across, to whatever end they might lead him to. (We’re talking a simple household chore here, not even the acquiring of a job, friends, or an independent adult existence). Even though it stars Jason Segal, of whom I have not been a fan, and even though its raison d’être is one that has, in the past, really gotten my blood boiling.įor this is the tale of justifying the layabout, directionless existence of thirtysomething good-for-nothing Jeff (Segal: Bad Teacher, Gulliver’s Travels), who lives at home, and cannot be bothered to do a single damn even minimally useful thing with his day unless his poor mother, Sharon (Susan Sarandon: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Solitary Man), nags him endlessly to do it. Those with a very low tolerance for indie quirk may find their patience tried, but I, who have been mixed on the Duplasses and really hated their last film, the similarly themed Cyrus, kinda couldn’t help being charmed by this one. With Jeff, Who Lives at Home - yes, with a comma *sigh* - Duplass brothers Jay and Mark of mumblecore fame have made their least mumblecore-esque and most just-plain-basic-indie-quirky film yet.
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