Sometimes it's nice to see a film that focuses on making one thing shine. Jay and Mark Duplass' festival darling Baghead"" captures some great relationship dynamics on screen in a very realistic way, but any adherence to genre or plot goes out the window in favor of a man with a bag on his head.
Shot in the spirit of ""mumblecore,"" a genre of shaky digital cameras and improvised scripts, the look of the film matches these underdog characters, humanized by their organic, free-flowing dialogue. After seeing their friend's overhyped but successful indie darling, Matt (Ross Partridge), Chad (Steve Zissis), Michelle (Greta Gerwig) and Catherine (Elise Muller) decide they could make their own low-budget hit and resolve to hide away at Chad's cabin until they've come up with a script that will jump-start their sagging acting careers. They set out for the cabin and hole up for some creative brainstorming sessions.
They end up drinking, playing cards and goofing around, of course, all underscored by the sexual tension among the four. Catherine thinks she and Matt are back together as a couple, but Matt thinks they're not exclusive. Chad wants to hook up with Michelle, but Michelle is more interested in slipping Matt dirty notes while Chad grabs her another vodka mixer. The film is shaping up to be a 20-something relationship movie, another mumblecore staple.
The film takes a turn when Michelle describes a dream about a man with a potato sack over his head staring at her from the woods. Matt thinks it's a perfect idea for their movie and runs with it, initiating an escalating series of pranks scaring each other as Baghead.
The pranks get more and more serious. Someone shows up as Baghead in Michelle's bedroom, staring at her as she plays the part of the dumb beauty and strips for a masked stranger she assumes is Matt. When she realizes Matt was nowhere near her room, she freaks out and attempts to leave, only to find that the car battery is missing. The audience begins to wonder who is pulling the pranks, or if they are pranks at all.
The tension between laughs and screams is a lot of fun for a while, but the cast just doesn't seem to do as well with the horror material in the last act of the film. Besides, watching all the mean-spirited pranks makes it difficult for audiences to care if some psychopath hacks the whole gang to pieces. And when audiences finally find out the truth about Baghead, it's pretty underwhelming, almost to the point of undermining the enjoyable first half of the film.
The whole mishmash of genres and styles points to the film's larger message started in the film's opening scenes - festival films are bullshit, and their contained human drama happens nearly by accident. A fair point, one supposes, except you have to watch a festival film to derive it.
Grade: BC
