Jeff, Who Lives at Home (***1/4)

Jeff (Jason Segel) is, in conventional terms, a loser. When we meet him, he’s half watching an infomercial in the basement, where he sleeps. An odd phone call turns out to be a wrong number, but Jeff's the kind of person who thinks there are no coincidences. He thinks, instead, that the call might be a clue of some kind, a path to destiny. Pat (Ed Helms), who lives in a modest apartment, is, in conventional terms, an ass. When we meet him, he's just blown a bundle on a Porsche without telling his wife (Judy Greer).

Jeff and Pat are brothers. So are writer-director team Mark and Jay Duplasse, whose last film, Cyrus, was also about a man living with his mother. This movie is in a similar style, taking a fairly realistic approach to a fairly odd character and focusing also on the mother, who here is played by Susan Sarandon. Her storyline is about trying to deal with a son who she can barely motivate to do a simple home repair before she gets home from work, where she has surprisingly acquired a secret admirer. Meanwhile, her sons wind up tailing Pat’s wife, whom he suspects may be having an affair. These scenes are quite funny and play the brothers’ opposite personalities against each other.

Naturally—that is, both inevitably and seamlessly— things turn serious. The brothers Duplasse seem to agree with their main character than everyone has a destiny, and their effort to have all three family members experience a kind of redemption all in one day may seem strained to those who, like me, believe otherwise. Nonetheless, this is funny when it means to be, quirky yet approachable, and sharp in its depictions of the characters, including Rae Dawn Chong as the mother’s coworker.

IMDb link

viewed 3/13/12 7:30 at Ritz 5 [PFS screening] and reviewed 3/16/12