Review of Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2012) by Lee B — 25 Jul 2012

Every now and then I stumble across a film which is not exciting, not moving and not sharp... but it still has a likable charm and magnetism. Jeff is one of those films.

This low budget comedy from 2011 features Jason Siegel as it's stoner lead and follows him on his seemingly unrealistic and pointless quest to find significance in a simple coincidence. While not having any laugh out loud moments the film does have a very nice and subtle level of humour throughout.

Jeff (Siegel) is a 30 something man living in his mums basement who lives to get stoned. I would normally avoid this type of shallow, one dimensional stereotype that we so often see in stoner films. Siegel manages to make the character likeable and humorous and offers a bit more depth than the usual flat dick and fart jokes which usually come with characters like this. The film is evenly paced throughout and at times it can feel like your going nowhere but if you persist then it you'll find, just like Jeff does, that it wasn't a waste of time.

The film tries to balance Jeff's quest with his brothers own task of trying to find out if his wife is cheating or not, and their mothers attempt to uncover the identity of a secret admirer. All three plot lines are dealt with fairly equally and none are boring, the meat of the story is with Jeff though.

To summarise Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a funny and charming film with some heartfelt moments scattered around it.

This films gets - THUMBS UP.