Jeff, Who Lives at Home (Rolling Stone)

            Jeff, Who Lives at Home follows a similar format that is found in Jay and Mark Duplass’s first foray into the mainstream, Cyrus. Not unlike Cyrus, Jeff is a quirky comedy that features A-list comedic actors playing characters that are in-keeping with what they are known for. Jason Segel plays Jeff, a stoner with a heart of gold and Ed Helms plays his uptight, corporate brother Pat, who is in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Spoiler: he buys a Porsche. Thanks to the dialogue from the Duplass brothers, both actors have a lot to work with and bring their own element to the characters. Helms provides the right amount of brash douchiness (“This Porsche is normal-sized, you’re a sasquatch.”) and Segel brings the warmth.

The movie opens with the audience being introduced to Jeff through his endearing obsession with the movie Signs and his search for a deeper purpose in life ("I can't help but wonder about my fate, my destiny.”). After receiving a wrong-number phone call intended for someone named Kevin, Jeff thinks he may have found his true calling.  A trip to the store to fetch some wood glue turns into an adventure following omens of “Kevin.”

            One such omen leads him to a restaurant where Pat (Helms) is eating with a co-worker and reeling from a fight he just had with his wife about the aforementioned Porsche.  Pat gets inadvertently mixed-in with Jeff’s wanderings on a separate quest to discover if his angry wife is mad enough at him to cheat. Second spoiler: she is. The two brothers gallivant all across the city together and the various roadblocks and hindrances they come across bring out the best in each character. Pat (Helms) grows slowly more infuriated and on the verge of an ulcer while Jeff (Segel) is in a state of elation because he thinks he’s finally found his calling, thanks to “Kevin.”

            Susan Sarandon, who plays Jeff and Pat’s mother Sharon, provides a nice intermediary between the two throughout the movie. Though she is lonely, she is the most grounded character in the book, until her world is also turned upside down. Spoiler: a co-worker falls in love with her. Between the three of these characters, there is enough witty dialogue and plot twists to keep audiences more than content.