Arts & Entertainment

Duplass Brothers and 'Jeff' Delight on MVFF34 Opening Night

New Orleans natives' film serves up equal portions of comedy and family drama in front of a packed house at the Sequoia in Mill Valley.

Mill Valley resident Marsha Heckman experienced seemingly contradictory emotions Thursday night, and had Mark and Jay Duplass - and their film - to thank for it.

“Thank you for making me laugh and cry at the same time,” Heckman told the filmmakers at a post-screening Q&A at the Cinearts at Sequoia Theatre for the ’s opening night.

Heckman’s sentiments seemed to sum up the overall crowd reaction to the film, and the Duplass brothers explained that its mix of emotions was a major theme in the script they wrote.

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“They see the world very much like we do,” Mark Duplass said about Jeff’s stars, Jason Segel and Ed Helms, two of Hollywood’s busiest comedic actors, “in that comedy and drama can exist in the same moment.”

That happens throughout Jay, Who Lives at Home, which tracks a 30-year-old stoner who lives in the basement of his mother’s home and is constantly seeking out for signs that will lead him to his destiny.

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Mark Duplass described the main character as someone who might be easy to write off as a 30-year-old stoner living in his mom’s basement. “But when you dig a bit deeper, you realize that he is extremely thoughtful and has hopes and dreams. He believes the universe has great things in store for him.”

Jeff, set to his U.S. theaters in March 2012, also tells the story of two very different brothers. Helms plays Pat, a high-strung paint salesman who views most of what comes out of his brother’s mouth as mumbo-jumbo. “What you just said sounded like Yoda dropped acid at a business meeting,” he says in one scene.

It seemed quite the opposite relationship enjoyed by Mark and Jay Duplass, whose critically acclaimed indie films like Baghead and Cyrus got them to a point where they could make Jeff, based on a script they wrote five years ago, exactly the way they wanted.

Mark Duplass said he absolutely loved working with his brother, saying the chaos of making a film was incredibly difficult and that the kinds of brotherly travails of Jeff and Pat rarely pop up because the Duplass are so focused on the task at hand.

That difficulty is exacerbated by their style of filmmaking, which calls for lengthy, naturalistic, improvised scenes that allow actors to simply use the script as a template and dig deeply into the interaction with the other characters.

“It’s people having real interaction in a room,” Jay Duplass said. “It doesn’t last the 12 seconds of one shot. They have a 5-15 minute interaction playing out a whole scene and you capture it secondarily as a documentary filmmaker.”

When asked at a what they’d do if a studio approached them with a fat budget predicated on them changing that style, the brothers broke into a comedic tag team riff that brought Spiderman back to Earth and left the room in stitches.

“They do that all the time,” Mark Duplass said. “Not interested. So yeah, we’re not going to be directing Spiderman anytime soon.”

“Except maybe if Spiderman retires and he has to deal with his feelings,” Jay Duplass added.

“When Spiderman goes bald, we will be there to capture all of the passive aggressive feelings that Spiderman takes out on his younger brother and his wife,” Mark chimed in.

“We should just make Spiderman 52 (years old) right now – let’s call it,” Jay continued. “He’s got an enlarged prostate, he’s not happy about it and he hasn’t told anyone about it.”

“What happens when Spiderman can’t climb that wall anymore?” Mark finished.


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