On his way to the store to buy wood glue, Jeff looks for signs from the universe to determine his path. However, a series of comedic and unexpected events leads him to cross paths with his family in the strangest of locations and circumstances. Jeff just may find the meaning of his life... and if he's lucky, pick up the wood glue as well.
Reviews
The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“I love titles with a comma in them ... the pause it creates is cheering in a high-speed digital age where punctuation is losing its potency. The brothers Mark and Jay Duplass have hit the bull's-eye with their troubled family comedy Jeff, Who Lives at Home. The comma here speaks of hesitation, of doubt. Jeff (ahem) is a bit sad, a 30-year-old deadbeat who lolls about in his mother's poky basement, puffing on his bong and watching TV. His opening monologue, spoken for some reason into a tape-recorder, testifies to his obsession with the M. Night Shyamalan alien-visitation movie Signs. This in itself is a sign – that Jeff's pretty gullible. That comma also implies a kind of stasis. Jeff has been living at home for far too long; he needs to get out more. Or at least watch some better movies. As played by Jason Segel, he's a pudgy man-child who doesn't know how to help himself.”
11/05/2012
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The New York Times
A. O. Scott
“You are encouraged, at the outset, to laugh at Jeff and feel sorry for him. At 30 he spends his time in his mother’s basement, smoking weed and watching television and musing on his destiny. But as that destiny unfolds, you come to like Jeff and even to admire him. The aura of holy foolishness that hangs around him is not just bong exhaust: he turns out to be the hero of a disarmingly sincere spiritual fable. Or else the butt of a supremely clever, passive-aggressive joke. Or maybe — most likely — both. ”
15/03/2012
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The Observer
Philip French
“Has a dark symmetry and dangerous moments that prove to be as funny as its sunnier ones.”
13/05/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Nicholas Barber
“An appealingly low-key and laidback charmer that focuses on the everyday dissatisfactions of ordinary people. ”
13/05/2012
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“The film is watchable and often funny, but still seems encumbered with a kind of Sundance-indie self-consciousness, and I wondered if, in the end, it was doing anything more than the far more unassuming and gag-packed Harold & Kumar movies. Yet what is interesting is that the entire action of the film, right up to its final revelation, could be played as a dead straight, emotionally choked drama of the cosmic supernatural.”
10/05/2012
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Total Film
James Mottram
“Fresh from singing and dancing with Kermit, Jason Segel gets to play his own muppet in Jeff, Who Lives At Home.”
10/05/2012
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Scotland on Sunday
Siobhan Synnot
“I’m ambivalent about the merits of mumblecore – low-budget independent film that places an especially high value on shaggy storytelling. One problem is that however quixotic Jeff’s adventures turn out to be, this feels like yet another naturalistically boring couch story about the existential crises experienced by immature men when they are required to act a little more like adults, and a little less like a self-indulgent dudes. They might be like real people, but are they anyone you would particularly care to spend time with?”
06/05/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Robbie Collin
“The Duplasses are key figures in the lo-fi American filmmaking movement known as “mumblecore”, and their new picture is about as mainstream as the style is going to get.”
10/05/2012
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The Los Angeles Times
Betsy Sharkey
“Occasionally, and weirdly, there will be a good point in Jeff's meandering musings. 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. This slight story unfolds in Baton Rouge, La., but it is really set in a state of malaise similar to the one that the Duplass brothers cast over Cyrus in such splendid fashion. Jeff is looser all around, with a narrative that never reaches the level of destructive cleverness in Cyrus.”
16/05/2012
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Empire Magazine
David Hughes
“One of those films that introduces characters you enjoy spending time with — Segel is well within his comfort zone as the lovable lug, while Helms is effective as a petty, prissy asshole — but ultimately finds little to do with them, rewarding the audience’s investment with… well, not a lot. ”
08/05/2012
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The Times
Wendy Ide
“The kind of rambling assemblage of half-baked slacker philosophy that gives American independent cinema a bad name. ”
11/05/2012
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
“We viewers are left with our own niggling question about the origin and purpose of what confronts us: did the Duplasses intend the film to be as slight and saccharine as it is?”
13/05/2012
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
“A squandering of space, time and actor/part-time screenwriter Jason Segel.”
10/05/2012
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