I rarely review lesser-known independent films. Not because I don’t think they are worthwhile – far from it; but I started “Into the Dance” out of a desire to dialogue with the culture of which I am a part, and this entails writing about films that I can be sure a reasonable number of people are seeing.
But I cannot resist the opportunity to comment on “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” an independent comedy from 2011.
I saw this movie on Netflix with a couple of acquaintances over the past weekend. At first, I wasn’t expecting much. My impression was that this was going to be another low brow comedy of which there is no dearth nowadays. Not only did the film have a totally different style from such movies, it also had a depth that I never expected to find, let alone comment upon.
The film follows the misadventures of two brothers – Pat (Ed Helms), a modestly successful businessman, and Jeff (Jason Segel), a lazy, unemployed, marijuana-smoking 30-year-old who lives in his mother’s basement – through Baton Rouge, Louisiana during a single day.
We can see two prevalent worldviews embodied in each of the two brothers. In Pat, we see the rationalistic viewpoint that basically takes the universe to be a giant mechanism guided more by chance than by purpose or meaning.
In Jeff, on the other hand, we see someone who is, in his own (admittedly unhealthy) way, seeking refuge from such a world and yearning to be part of a meaningful universe where everything has a purpose (we get this in his opening monologue on M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002 sci-fi thriller “Signs”).
And so when he answers the phone and gets a wrong-number call from someone looking for “Kevin,” he takes this as a sign that will somehow lead him to his destiny and eagerly gets to work on figuring out its meaning.
At first, he turns the name “Kevin” into an anagram, going through several combinations until he finally comes up with “knive.” He then goes to the kitchen and pulls a large knife out of a utensil holder…it’s not clear what he plans to do with it, but he eyes it with great curiosity.
At that moment, his mother (Susan Sarandon) calls and asks him to go out and buy some wood glue. It is then that the adventure begins.
Having already begun to reflect on what I would write about “Brave” (posted yesterday), I could not help but see this as a moment of grace. Jeff saw what he believed was a sign, followed it as far as he could (beyond the point where his actions even made any sense), and then at the right moment got a directive from without.
While he is out, Jeff runs into his brother, Pat, and becomes involved in one of his problems. Nevertheless, he continues to follow all persons and things with the name “Kevin.” But whatever path he takes, it just leads him right back to Pat.
Towards the end of the film, Jeff reflects on his search for signs. His key insight is the idea that perhaps not all signs are about him. There are others in whose lives and destinies he has a part, and among these his family members have pride of place.
The invitation beyond a self-centered “slackerly” existence to a life lived out of responsibility for others culminates in the film’s climactic rescue scene, in which Jeff must risk his life (whether or not he dies I will leave unsaid) to save a drowning family. This is, of course, the ultimate act of self-giving:
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).
This is just a basic sketch. I’ll return either tomorrow or Saturday (depending on how much time I have tomorrow) with deeper insights into what these aspects of the film meant to me.
Top image from http://www.wikipedia.org. The rest were obtained through a Google image search.
Into the Dance 