BagheadCritic Reviews

  • Los Angeles Times

LosAngelesTimes

Michael Ordona

It would be best to simply recommend Baghead without any description so its surprises could remain intact. Nevertheless . . .

The characters are struggling actors with relationship complications who decide to write a movie to showcase themselves. But wait! It's much better than it sounds. There's a scary guy with a bag on his head (or perhaps just the idea of such a guy), the excruciating awkwardness of failed seduction, resonant snapshots of different kinds of love and some genuinely startling moments. Seriously.

The movie was written and directed by the Duplass brothers, whose The Puffy Chair was an indie-circuit darling. So, naturally, Baghead starts off with a delicious buffeting of the navel-gazing $1,000-movie crowd from whence the filmmakers come. Where it goes from there is delightfully unpredictable.

The acting by all four principals is very strong. Particularly effective is the earthily alluring Greta Gerwig, quickly becoming a staple of just the sort of camcorder-auteur films Baghead affectionately lampoons. The filmmakers maintain a delicate balance that generates tension on multiple levels, including sexual. They giddily mix genres, but Baghead, part meta-cinematic comedy, part relationship drama and part horror movie, remains rooted in reality.

Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times

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