Music and Medicine

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

The other night I went to the St. Louis International Film Festival to watch Jeff, Who Lives at Home. Unfortunately, this was not a free pass movie, but I figured I could use another prompt for writing. 

Jeff starts off with the main character Jeff, played by Jason Segel, expressing his deep love for the movie Signs by Mel Gibson. He is particularly enthralled by it’s message that everything happens for a reason. Also, the little girl who everyone thinks is weird but who in the end, turns out to be a hero. The central themes of destiny and signs Jeff rambles on about play an important role in the rest of the film. But the scenes quasi-serious nature is instantly shot as the camera zooms out from Jeff’s face to reveal him tape-recording himself while on the toilet. From this starting point, the film goes on to tell a well-crafted story of destiny and family.

This movie brought me to my own memory of family and the movie Signs. Years ago, my older brother Michael (if you want some real reviews of movies, you should check out his website tangledupinwires.com) and I went to the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN. We were accompanied by my friend Ben and spent four days camping out and going to none-stop music. For those who don’t know what Bonnaroo is like, when I went it was a strange combination of a hippie and hipster characters (I’ll let you sort out which category I belong to for yourself). You camp out for four days in this giant lot of people and cars. There are no real showers and you spend all day sweating and getting dirt everywhere.

Now, I’m a person who likes showering. It’s more a combination of the joy of water and the habitual nature of it then a compulsion to be clean. This meant though, that by the end of the festival I was ready to feel water rush over me. On our drive home, a large thunderstorm roamed through. So instead of having to wait for the 13 hours or so the drive home would take, we opted to instead find a hotel and camp out there for the night.

This lead to what I believe to be the second happiest viewing of Signs ever, right behind Jeff’s obviously more joyful experience. Upon reaching our room, we immediately rejoiced at the simple fact of being somewhere quiet and devoid of thousands of other people. Our next course of action was to take-turns showering while a pizza was being baked and delivered to our room. The T.V. was flipped on, as they tend to be in hotel rooms. After some light channel flipping we settled on Signs. 

The feeling I had of sitting there, reveling in silence is I think how Jeff lives his life. Jeff is a very spacious movie. There’s plenty of room, which likely arises from the Duplass brothers preference to let actors improve scens. In order to capture the true spirit of their performance, they literally give actors space and opt to use zoom to capture tighter shots. This technique does give the movie a little bit more of a real feel, but because it lacks an accompanying auditorial spaciousness, it comes off feeling strange. However by mid-movie, there’s enough movement and dialogue that this isn’t really a problem. All in all, Jeff is a good movie. Solidly shot and acted. Ultimately though it lacks that little bit of extra push that makes it a great movie. It’s worth watching though. 

In my next review, I’ll be covering The Descendants which I thought was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Until then: Movie #2