'Baghead': Cute characters, but dead spots in plot
“Baghead” is a slice-of-life comedy mixed with slice-and-dice horror that’s low-rent indie all the way.
That is its blessing and, sometimes, its curse.
BAGHEAD
Three stars
STARRING: Steve Zissis, Greta Gerwig, Ross Partridge and Elise Muller
DIRECTORS: Mark and Jay Duplass
RUNNING TIME: 84 minutes
RATING: Not rated, but R equivalent for nudity, language.
THE LOWDOWN: Struggling actors developing a screenplay in a remote cabin see it take shape beyond expectations.
The film surrounds two couples. There’s Matt (Ross Partridge), looking like a young Mel Gibson with “Elvis hair,” and Catherine (Elise Muller), who have been on-and- off for 11 years. And then there’s Chad (Steve Zissis), whose lust for Michelle (Greta Gerwig) is met with the double whopper: “You’re like my best friend but also my brother.”
All are unsuccessful actors, and after watching cheapo, laugh-out-loud-bad “We Are Naked” at a film festival,
the director explains how his films are done with people who have no idea they are being filmed.
Then the four rush off to a remote cabin for the weekend to write a screenplay.
Yes, past is transparently prologue here.
Filmmakers and brothers Mark and Jay Duplass have developed a reputation for making do-it-yourself, low-budget films, and “Baghead” follows in that tradition. Here, the duo also spends time putting down familiar conventions of indie movie-making and slasher films.
The film is shot with herky-jerky, hand-held cameras, and there are times when Hollywood production values would be a welcome addition. The script has plenty of dead spots, too, especially in the dialogue.
Where the film excels is in its often-frustrated characters, who are recognizable and worth identifying with even as nothing much is usually happening. That is, when sexual tensions aren’t boiling to the surface.
Michelle is the attractive woman who’s simply not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. She gets wasted too much and, to Catherine and Chad’s dismay, doesn’t conceal her interest in Matt.
Matt, with two women after him and his male friend jealous, is the one motivated to put a script together in an effort to jump-start his nonstarter career. His proposal to film a horror story about a person wearing a bag over his head draws interest, but seems to quickly lose steam.
So when a person with a bag shows up outside, the film makes the awkward and never fully successful transition to alone-in-the-woods horror film.
Just when it seems the film has strayed from what makes it work, “Baghead” concludes with a scene that tellingly captures the characters’ personalities and restores this low-rent film’s charm.•
