Jeff Who Lives at Home
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: March 16, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
13
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Portland OregonianMarc MohanMar 15, 2012
It's an ending that may alienate some viewers, but will jolt others out of their comfort zones and into an appreciation of genuinely brave storytelling. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 15, 2012
This isn't a movie for everyone, but for fans of quirky charm leavened occasionally by uncomfortable, realistic exchanges, it's a small delight. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMar 16, 2012
It is small, it is smart, it is quirky. Read full review
75
NPRIan BuckwalterMar 19, 2012
Both Jeff and the film have a way of sneaking up on you. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMar 16, 2012
A high-wire act that could crash if the actors were out of sync, but under this big top, the never-better Segel keeps everyone aloft. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 15, 2012
The Duplass brothers keep making miniatures that contain universes. They seem to be casual, but they're dead serious. They seem to be stumbling around finding stories by accident, but their movies are thematically rigorous. They seem to be presenting matters of little consequence, but the stakes are always huge and life-changing. Read full review
75
USA TodayScott BowlesMar 15, 2012
Sarandon is worth leaving home for, even if Jeff won't. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 15, 2012
The funny, touching and vital Jeff, Who Lives at Home reaffirms your faith in Jay and Mark Duplass. Their films hit you where you live. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMar 15, 2012
Nothing in this quiet, quirky comedy from the brothers Duplass comes close to Jeff's inspired, bong-fueled deconstruction of "Signs," but it gives us a good idea of where this guy is coming from. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinMar 14, 2012
Jeff begins with its protagonist discussing a Hollywood movie and ends by embracing the worst excesses of commercial American filmmaking, but there are enough moments of magic and wonder in the interim to make it worthwhile. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMar 14, 2012
A whimsical comedy, very whimsical, depending on the warmth of Segal and Sarandon, the discontent of Helms and Greer, and still more warmth that enters at midpoint with Carol (Rae Dawn Chong), Sarandon's co-worker at the office. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumMar 14, 2012
With his large bod, soft features, and air of goofy sweetness, Jason Segel is a natural fit for Jeff, Who Lives at Home, a goofy, sweet comedy. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 14, 2012
It's a movie that grows on you, after grating your nerves while viewing it. Read full review
70
TimeMary PolsMar 18, 2012
It's pointed, a piece of domestic comedy that starts with the unappealing sight of an overgrown slacker hunched on a faux leather couch in a dingy basement and subtly winds its way into a tender, wise and completely delightful film about family. Read full review
70
Village VoiceBrian MillerMar 13, 2012
Jeff is a surprisingly mutable, ultimately poignant day-in-the-life drama about a slacker who genuinely wants to stand tall. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 12, 2012
Graced with Susan Sarandon's radiant turn as Jeff's all-patient mother-enabler, this sweet but slight effort could modestly expand their audience beyond the slacker set to include middle-aged women. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazineSara Maria VizcarrondoMar 9, 2012
A family drama that looks for answers in coincidence (is it really ever coincidence?), this endearing and breezy comic fable watches Jeff's coming of age and promises nothing after his moment of truth. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeMar 9, 2012
A short and sweet outing pairing the Duplass brothers with mismatched screen siblings Jason Segel and Ed Helms, Jeff Who Lives at Home pulls back from the comedy of Cyrus in favor of character-defining vignettes and moments of grace. Read full review
65
MovielineStephanie ZacharekMar 16, 2012
At what point do we stop applauding the Duplass brothers for their gumption and stick-to-itiveness and admit that, maybe, their storytelling just isn't so hot? Or that their characters sometimes seem more like groovy-cute constructs than believable people? Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickMar 16, 2012
A bit too shaggy to totally live up to the potential of its fine cast. But there are moments of comedy gold - especially as Segel, who went full-frontal for "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" endures endless humiliations as the title character. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 15, 2012
It feels incomplete and the ending is entirely too convenient. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 12, 2012
The film is watchable and often funny, but still seems encumbered with a kind of Sundance-indie self-consciousness, and I wondered if, in the end, it was doing anything more than the far more unassuming and gag-packed Harold & Kumar movies. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramMay 12, 2012
Cool cast, hip directors, but a movie that's less than the sum of both. Like its title character, Jeff is gentle, warm but a little forgettable. Read full review
60
EmpireDavid HughesMay 7, 2012
There's undoubtedly comedy mileage in an irreverent sending up of the Signs/Magnolia school of everything-is-connected philosophy. Despite the calibre of the cast, the Duplass brothers mostly fail to find it. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 15, 2012
Surprisingly, though, most of the material avoids the treacle zone, while Jason Segel, as the man-child in residence, gives a performance that I can only describe as gravely affecting. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMar 15, 2012
The whole movie is about piecing together broken parts. It may not always come together, but what it makes, if you look at it the right way, is endearing. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)James AdamsMar 16, 2012
This little movie – it's only 83 minutes – seems so determined to if not avoid, then only caress the tropes of slacker films that it commits the worst sin for a comedy: It's boring. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesMar 15, 2012
There are some funny scenes in which the two brothers spy on the wife, who may be having an affair, but the movie's climax is a badly contrived attempt to ratify Jeff's notion of personal destiny. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 15, 2012
With its shambling, felicitously contrived structure and Fellini-esque climax, it's some kind of Jungian slacker fable. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 15, 2012
The ending is also a test of the audience's openness to the kind of fantasy mocked, at the outset, by everyone in Jeff's life, including the filmmakers. They want to make us believe in something, though it's also possible that they are only fooling. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMar 15, 2012
The writing-directing brothers are usually interested in the small stuff of everyday, but perhaps they've gone a little too small here. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMar 15, 2012
A surprisingly sappy misfire from brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, a hug-it-out, touchy-feely movie that succumbs to the maudlin sentimentality they had avoided in all their previous pictures (The Puffy Chair, Baghead, Cyrus). Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMar 14, 2012
The Duplass brothers have an exceptional eye for microexpressions (yes, they're still zoom-happy), and there's something to be admired in this new interest in a macro lens on the universe's workings. If only it didn't take wading through so much drear to get to that divine. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerMar 14, 2012
For the most part, this is a boys-will-be-boys movie that excuses everything its pair of protags do in the name of some sort of cosmic order. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisMar 15, 2012
Jeff Who Lives at Home devotes so much of itself to mocking the loneliness and personal shortcomings of these characters that once it stops jabbing and turns serious, you start laughing. Read full review
20
Time OutKeith UhlichMar 13, 2012
As is, this semi-improvised feature comes off as a willfully vague exercise that, like its dimwit protagonist, presumes that profundity and enlightenment will emerge from the morass eventually. Er, maybe - or maybe not. Kinda like "Signs;" only much, much worse. Read full review
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