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BAGHEAD
Written & Directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass
Produced by Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass & John Bryant
Released by Sony Pictures Classics
USA. 88 min. Rated R
With Steve Zissis, Ross Partridge, Greta Gerwig & Elise Muller

More surprising than Baghead’s quirky, genre-bending plot line is the fact that this shoestring-budget horror/comedy is really quite good. When it comes to mumblecore—a cinematic movement that traffics in improvised scripts and close-up relationships between twentysomethings—the risk of pretension and sincerity-overload seems unavoidable. But after an opening scene dedicated to ridiculing said art-house drivel, Baghead gracefully avoids most indie-flick ickiness.

Dreamt up by the Duplass Brothers (of Puffy Chair acclaim), this wacky, character-driven project centers around four aspiring actors who decide that the only way they’ll ever be in a feature film is if they write it themselves. Under the almost inspiring delusion that this could be done in one weekend, they drive up to a log cabin to dedicate themselves to the task. But for every minute of work on the script, they waste hours drinking, flirting, and wading through their muddy relationships.

Funny and portly Chad (Steve Zissis) is wildly infatuated with Michelle (Greta Gerwig), a hipster nymphet who has her eye on Matt (Ross Partridge). Matt, the alpha male hottie, has been in an on-again-off-again relationship with Catherine (Elise Muller) for the past 11 years. Though grounded by the authenticity of the script, these believable characters are also, ever so slightly, caricatures of themselves. This is most notable in Catherine, whose palpable trepidation over her looks and her man is perfectly housed in her snide comments, dangly earrings, and dreadfully over-glossed lips.

Despite slacking off, the gang gets a great idea for a movie after Michelle dreams of seeing a man lurking in the forest with a brown bag (paper, not plastic) over his head. But was it really a dream? Soon unaccounted sightings of this “bagman” reveal that their would-be film might really be frightening, if only they could live to make it. 

The Duplass Brothers sketch the perfect parody of our most reductive cinema-shaped fears—dark forests à la The Blair Witch Project, sabotaged getaway vehicles, and psychos with knifes. And while they keep their fingers firmly on the pulse of what’s scary and what’s funny, the film is simultaneously a self-reflective comment on the creative process. Throw in sexual tension and this oddball little project begins to feel far greater than the sum of its parts. Yana Litovsky
July 25, 2008