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The Tao of Jeff
A stoner mystic trumps Snow White redux and ambivalent parenthood By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill and Devan King filmland@northcoastjournal.com
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JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME. The good comedies are always harder to find. Movies like Bridesmaids or The Hangover, with their incessant advertising, are impossible to avoid. Whatever entertainment value they might hold is lost before we enter the theater; they can’t live up to the hype. Jeff, Who Lives at Home had no hype, no expectations, no relentless buildup. With a tiny budget, a handheld camera and a small ensemble cast, Jeff is leaps and bounds above the standards of comedy set by recent Hollywood films. Brotherly duo Jay and Mark Duplass deserve the lion’s share of the credit. Like the Coen brothers, Jay and Mark work in tandem as co-screenwriters and directors. Stylistically, they focus on the humor of everyday situations, walking the line between reality and exaggeration. There is absolutely nothing grandiose about Jeff, Who Lives at Home, and that’s the key to its hilarity. The film follows one day in the life of two brothers, Jeff (Jason Segel) and Pat (Ed Helms), and their over-stressed mother,
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Sharon (Susan Sarandon). Jeff and Pat are the film embodiment of Goofus and Gallant, if Gallant had a douchier edge. Jeff is 30, unemployed, and lives in his mother’s basement. Disheveled, stoned and aimless, he’s the yin to Pat’s shallow and egotistical yang. Familial obligation and happenstance force the two brothers to endure a day together, each with different intentions. The simple plot is incredibly predictable, bringing the film’s quality down a notch. Jay and Mark Duplass don’t focus on plot, though; they’re constructing a storyline around the characters, rather than the other way around. This makes the film charming in a way most Hollywood comedies miss. Anyone can be funny if the situation is absurd enough. It takes real skill to induce laughter from the ordinary, and the Duplass brothers have it. R. 83m. —Devan King MIRROR MIRROR. Director Tarsem Singh’s take on Snow White is brimming with rapturous landscapes and fantastic costumes and sets. The opening sequence
of puppetry and animation is gorgeous, and the gowns made me rethink my position on yellow taffeta. But the writing and story don’t earn their seats at this visual feast. A good deal of license is taken with the original Grimm tale: The poison apple and its spell are cast aside, and the dwarves are boosting gold from royal sleighs instead of toiling in the mines. Snow White even makes the career jump from forest housekeeper to bandit queen. There’s also a fearsome beast stalking the forest, which might be a little scary for small children. Female rivalry has been given an update as well. The wicked queen (Julia Roberts) is recast as a gold-digging cougar with her sights set on marrying the oft-shirtless prince (Armie Hammer). To accomplish this she must, of course, dispatch her dewy rival, Snow White, played by Lily Collins with assistance from Audrey Hepburn’s eyebrows. Roberts has some fun moments sparring with her own frenemy reflection and suffering medieval spa treatments, but unlike Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep, she