Jeff, Who lives at home

            I have just finished watching this Duplass Bros. feature, staring Ed Helms and Jason Segel. For those who don’t know who the Duplass brothers are I can’t completely blame you, that said, you should know who they are. In fact if you watch the glory of The League you already know one half of the team, Mark aka Pete. Just don’t go into this movie expecting the same sort crude humour. Instead, the Duplass brothers deliver an amazingly touching film with some great performances.

The film takes place during one day in the lives of Jeff, a man child afraid of the world, his brother Pat, a dick; I mean he drives a Boxter Porsche, and lastly their mother Sharon, a grown woman just looking for something new. All three deliver wonderfully touching performances. Segel plays Jeff and at first seems like he’ll be playing his regular shtick, but the script and direction of the Duplass Bros., gives his performance calculated calmness that is truly endearing. The last time Segel was able to deliver this kind of earnest performance was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and ever since then he has been mimicking it with varied results, but never has he reached that pinnacle. Until now, he may have even surpassed it. Meanwhile Helms’ portrayal of Pat, was also a bit worrisome of me, but yet again Duplass Co., manages to deliver something fresh from a well-worn sock. He plays an asshole with few to no social skills, kind of like Andy Bernard from season two of The Office. The main difference in Pat from Andy is that where the writers from The Office struggled for years to give Andy soul, but because Andy is a caricature, a joke, a shtick, they were ultimately unsuccessful. Mark and Jay on the other hand succeed marvellously, simply because they make Pat a person and Helms just sprints along with it all without fumbling. Sarandon’s performance is probably the only one that brings up a gripe in me. This isn’t because it is bad but simply because there isn’t enough of it. Her story is simple and acted really efficiently, but unlike Jeff and Pat, her character never has room to breathe and soak up the events. This is a consequence of an ultra-lean 83 minute runtime.

This ultra-lean runtime has its pros and its cons. In its brevity the movie never meanders about with meaningless stand still. Every scene works with utmost efficiency, even if the characters have their heads in the clouds. This makes the film hard to simply dismiss or walk away from, since every scene is important. The cons on the other hand involve things like Sharon’s moment of crisis and growth feel rushed and at times over looked. The sense of urgency also means that we as an audience have no room to soak up the atmosphere, it’s always go-go-go, like the line at the soup Nazi’s kitchen. Though, one can pretty much ignore the con, because the end is just so damned good and brings everything together into one neat little bowtie without feeling forced, mainly due to the acting.

At the end of the day, this film fantastic. Not in a way that I might say, rush out and tell all your friends, but one of those nice movies that the next time you’re sitting at home on a Saturday night with a bucket of ice cream and a box of Popeyes, you definitely shouldn’t skip this over. Stop, check your clock, make sure you have a spare 83 minutes, you can skip this part because who are we kidding, if you’re home alone on a Saturday night using ice cream as chicken dip, you’ve got nowhere else to be that night, or possibly ever. Also, ice cream does not go well as Popeye’s dipping sauce.