"Jeff Who Lives at Home", quirky feel-good fun

Jeff Who Lives at Home

Feel-good movies is not exactly a film category, but there are so many out there I'm convinced it deserves a genre entirely of its own. And the vast, immense majority of them are awful, bland and phony numbers. That's why, despite its flaws and shortcomings, one doesn't want to be very tough (there are also some personal reasons, as where and with who I was watching it)  with a movie like "Jeff Who Lives at Home". A feel-good film that is not embarrassing? Hey, these are surprisingly good news, folks.

Indeed, there's nothing to be ashamed of in "Jeff". Mark and Jay, the Duplass brothers have penned a quirky little movie, mixing comedy, an off-beat and surreal sense of humour, with some pretty serious issues, like relationships, familiar as well as sentimental, or our definition of "what's normal and reasonable"... oh, well, the meaning of life, you know. Not shy on ambition, ehm? Honestly, it had all the elements for being insufferable, but you know what? It is not. The film is really enjoyable. Although sometimes moving on a very thin red line, shifting from almost slapstick scenes to utterly dramatic moments, "Jeff"'s  awkward, nearly impossible script works, also offering a vital, positive message with charm (and without being too cheesy).

Such and odd-ball couldn't work without committed and credible actors. And in that sense Jason Segel deserves a separate mention. He carries the whole film of his shoulders. He turns Jeff, a 30 years-old slacker-loser by definition, into a fragile, sweet and collapsed adult that is going to be the major force on a series of life-changing situations for him and his family with compelling freshness. Extraordinary job. In comparison, the other main actors, Ed Helms, his brother, and Susan Sarandon, his mother, are just ok.  

Precisely, if "Jeff" fails short is on the parallel stories of Pat and Sharon, leaded by Helms and Sarandon. The first one lacks verisimilitude because the drastic personality shifts on the character, which makes him hard to believe in what regards to the dramatic side of the story, around his failing marriage with Linda (played by Judy Greer). While the second is by far the less inspired, looking somewhat forced (the shower scene is a bit gratuitous). That unbalance on the stories, and the epic, bombastic finale makes "Jeff Who Lives at Home" a flawed film. But as I said, thanks to Segel, the originality in how the story develops and its comedy side, is nevertheless a recommendable movie that can endure with the spectator. A remarkable feel-good movie.

SCORE: 6,5/10 

"The Lovely Bones", Peter Jackson without hobbits is...

The Lovely Bones

...Even worse than usual (yes, not a fan of "Lord of the Rings" either, very far from it). It's hard to decide where to begin, as "The Lovely Bones" is a pretty indigestible amount of mistakes. Surprisingly huge mistakes.

I haven't read the book from Alice Sebold, but I can easily adventure myself (you can see there are numerous complaints about it too) saying that Peter Jackson didn't pay a lot of respect to it. Why? Because there are only two options: or the plot is so badly written that nothing really makes sense, or the film has a shockingly serious problem with edition. Well, there's a third option. Both options are correct.

Not even a good cast, who try relentlessly to do something with the material they have, can save the film from total disaster. Rachel Weisz and Mark Wahlberg are convincing being the desperate fathers seeking/longing for her disappeared/murdered daughter, but only from time to time, when Peter Jackson remembers he is directing a supposedly compelling drama/thriller and not a Disney-goes-creepy (or at least on drugs) one, making the relation between the couple completely unbelievable. Stanley Tucci, Mr. Wilson, is solid portraying the serial killer, but his problem is Jackson again, who doesn't know what to do with him, then overuses him, then... (I won't reveal it, but it is so weak). Even Saoirse Ronan, who does wonders with her role as Susie Salmon, is just wasted after she's dead, spending too much time doing nothing in the digital world designed as her way to heaven, which is just a luxurious excuse to satisfy Jackson obsessions with CGI (because it doesn't a real function for the development of the film, just kills its rhythm). And special mention has to be made to the horrendous, totally out of place character of the grandma, played by Susan Sarandon.

But there's plenty more to add. Jackson switches the point of view so many times we get seriously confused, something that is particularly embarrassing with the evolution of time on the film. We "loose" many characters during the development of the film, characters that at some point (or at least in some scene) seemed to be important: Ray, Ruth, Buckley, the policeman....  they disappear and, in some cases, when they are back into scene, are supposed to be crucial for the resolution of the film... Which bring us to the end of the film that I, of course, won't spoil it. But just let me say the amount of sappiness, blandness and incongruousness is going to be hard to match in a long time. "The Lovely Bones" is a complete nightmare of a movie, painful to watch.

SCORE: 1,75/10