“Jeff, Who Lives At Home,” a film by the Duplass brothers, was screened at the Chicago Film Festival on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 to an enthusiastic crowd anxious to see Ed Helms (“The Office,” “The Hangover”), Jason Segel (“Knocked Up,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “I Love You, Man”) and Susan Sarandon (“Dead Man Walking,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Thelma and Louise”). Jay Duplass was present for the screening and answered questions afterwards.
The film follows two brothers, Jeff (Segel) and Pat (Helms) over one day, using the documentary-style shooting that Jay and Mark Duplass have become known for. “We just put people in a room and light the whole room and film it like a documentarian. On a regular film, there is just one area lit and the actor has to come down and hit his or her mark and there might be 50 people standing there in a circle. The actors outnumber the crew.
Jay Duplass, Director of "Jeff, Who Lives at Home'" at the Chicago Film Festival.
In our films, they (the actors) own the space. Of course, I’ve gotta’ hustle to get the shots or there might be something epic going on and I’m standing behind a lamp.” This is the style the brothers Duplass have employed since 2001 and it has become standard on such TV sit-coms as “Parks & Recreation” and “The Office.” Many, seeing those shows on television, think the Brothers Duplass have been copying TV, when it is the other way around. Said Jay Duplass in the Q&A after the film: “We’ll never put anything secondary to what our actors are experiencing.”
Another hallmark of a Duplass film, aside from the fact that all of their protagonists seem to be desperate (“Cyrus” with John C. Reilly is an example) is that all actors are expected to improvise most of their lines. With lines like, “What you just said sounded like Yoda took acid and stumbled into a business meeting,” or (Segal commenting on the size of Helms’ new Porsche), “The Porsche is normal-sized. You’re a Sasquatch,” make it clear that these actors are more than equal to the task.
Jeff Thompson (Segel) is shown dictating his thoughts into a tape recorder as the film opens. It isn’t until the camera pulls back that we realize he is sitting on the toilet at the time. Most of Jeff’s musings are about the meaning of life and the “signs” in the Universe that might help him to realize his potential, since, at this point in his life, he is 30 years old and living in his mom’s (Susan Sarandon) basement. (The M. Night Shymalan movie “Signs” is a recurring reference in the film.)
Jay Duplass and moderator during a Q&A that followed the screening of his film "Jay, Who Lives at Home" at the Chicago 47th International Film Festival.
Sharon Thompson (Sarandon) is at work and speaks to Jeff on the phone, telling him to take the bus to Highland Avenue to get wood glue to fix one of her broken shutters within the house. Jeff (Segel) does get on the bus, but he is currently obsessed with the phone calls he keeps getting asking for “Kevin.” Jeff expresses the idea that everything in the universe is inter-related, that everyone and everything is interconnected and he thinks “there are no wrong numbers.”
When Jeff sees a young black man on the bus wearing a jersey that says “Kevin,” he gets off the bus and follows him, eventually ending up in a pick-up game of basketball and (also) being mugged. So far, no wood glue.
Enter brother Pat, who is married and works at Poplar Paint Company. Pat and Linda (Judy Greer), his wife, have hit a rough spot in their childless marriage, some of it because Linda wants to buy a house, while Pat goes out and buys a Porsche, which Linda is not thrilled about. It is easy to see that both brothers are screw-ups, just in different ways.
After Pat’s impetuous purchase of the expensive Porsche (which he promptly wraps around a tree), Linda almost has an affair with a co-worker, Steve (Steve Zisses), even though all she is looking for is someone who will actually listen to what she says. (At one point, attempting to reconcile with her, Pat says, none too endearingly, “I’m going to try to understand your incoherent babble.”)
Another sub-plot involves a “secret admirer” at mother Sharon’s work, who keeps sending Sharon computer messages. At various points, characters say things like, “This is not the way I imagined my life was going to go.” Sharon muses on how she thought she’d join the Peace Corps, live in a hut, and end up kissing the love of her life under a waterfall. Instead, she is a widow (her husband Dan died in 1995 at the age of 44) and, as she tells co-worker Rae Dawn Chong, “I hate my kids right now. When did that happen? They were so cute when they were little.”
The universal human desire to love and be loved dominates the film. After Pat discovers that Linda has been seeing another man, confronts her and she says that she thinks they should both “just walk away” from their marriage, Pat says to his brother, “I just want to feel like I love Linda and I want to feel like she loves me. I miss it. I want it so bad.” Jeff, who is more the philosopher of the two, suggests that Pat must go to Linda and tell her. (“You need to say that to her right now.”)
That leads to a climactic scene on a bridge in traffic, where both brothers, their mother and Pat’s wife Linda end up in a destiny-shaping moment that makes them appreciate their lives.
“What happened?” asks Jeff as he recovers from a near drowning.
“Everything,” is the answer.
A truly entertaining film that is about much more than it sounds like it will be, when/if you read the plot synopsis.
See it for yourself. It’s worth doing.