Jeff, Who Lives at Home

LITTLE ROCK — If Jason Segel has a singular talent as an actor, it’s his ability to embody several different edges all at once.

When he played a young, befuddled high-school student in the beloved, short-lived TV series Freaks & Geeks, his character evolved from a perpetually stoned good-time boy into a slightly too intense, off-kilter inveterate loser, increasingly unable to communicate what he felt inside.

He is equally adept portraying slick, no-rules rogues and shlubby outsiders. His slacker shamble pairs well with the Duplass brothers’ patented blend of formless narrative and post-mumblecore insouciance, so it’s no surprise to see him fitting so well into the freewheeling ethos of their latest film.

Segel plays the titular character, who does, in fact, live in his mother’s Baton Rouge basement, getting stoned, eating snacks and desperately trying to decipher his destiny. A heartfelt acolyte of M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, Jeff tries to stay open to patterns and coincidences, solving the riddles as he ambles through his life.

His brother, Pat (Ed Helms, sporting an evil-twin goatee), on the other hand, has issues of an entirely different nature. Impetuous and mincing, he belittles his wife, Linda (Judy Greer), and impulsively acts out of supreme selfishness - as we meet the struggling couple, he’s trying to break the news to her that he took the money they were saving for a house and bought a Porsche instead.

The two boys are overseen by their bedraggled mother, Sharon (Susan Sarandon),who spends her day working listlessly in her office until a secret admirer starts trying to make a connection.

The three members of the family spend this remarkable day following their individual destinies until they all happen to converge together at once.

The Duplass brothers, Jay and Mark, have a way of teasing out the complexity in their characters, even as they act out a seemingly never-ending series of idiocies.

Jeff, for all his stoned quasimetaphysics, is actually just a sweet-minded and egoless fellow, convinced for all the world that the universe works from a comfortingly familiar road map; Pat, confronted with the distinct possibility of his wife having an affair, finally breaks through his incessant put-downs and petulant interruptions to actually hear what people are trying to say to him; meanwhile, Sharon is forced into believing in forces beyond her immediate understanding.

As a comedy, the movie moves easily through its shaggy-dog-ness, creating a simplified world in which all things happen at once. If there’s a deeper message, as the ending of film would seem to suggest, it’s not exactly hard-earned, but, in a way, there’s something entirely fitting about that.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home 88 Cast: Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Judy Greer, Susan Sarandon Directors: Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass Rating: R, for language including sexual references and some drug use Running time: 83 minutes