Jeff Baena

Jeffrey Lance Baena (; June 29, 1977 – January 3, 2025) was an American screenwriter and film director. His most successful films were 2004's '' I Heart Huckabees'' and 2020's '' Horse Girl'', though his projects to receive the most contemporaneous critical acclaim were the 2016 and 2017 films '' Joshy'' and ''The Little Hours''. Baena frequently worked with his wife Aubrey Plaza, and writing partner Alison Brie.

He began his career as a screenwriter, co-writing the 2004 comedy film ''I Heart Huckabees'' and, around the same time, seeing his script for '' Life After Beth'' enter production before being shelved. Baena, as an independent filmmaker, expanded to directing a decade later and filmed ''Life After Beth'' as his directorial debut, starring Aubrey Plaza and released in 2014. Working with producer Liz Destro, Plaza, and an expanding group of frequent collaborators, Baena was then writer-director for ''Joshy'' (2016) and ''The Little Hours'' (2017), which both became critically acclaimed and found a cult audience.

Among the performers in these films was Alison Brie, with whom Baena struck up a writing partnership and created works produced by Duplass Brothers Productions. They made the 2020 psychological drama film ''Horse Girl'' together, Baena's most commercial film, followed by the television anthology series '' Cinema Toast'' (2021) and Baena's final film, 2022's '' Spin Me Round''. In his first films Baena implemented his post-mumblecore style as an improvisation-heavy filmmaker, and his films co-written with Brie are marked by exploration of expectations in film form.

Early life and education

Jeffrey Lance Baena was born in Miami on June 29, 1977, to Barbara (later Stern) and Scott Baena. He was raised in a secular Jewish family in the suburbs of Kendall and Coral Gables, where he enjoyed being surrounded by Latin and Caribbean cultures; he later said that he "felt a sense of community" there, a contrast to the negative perception of drug cartel violence. Baena's great-grandparents, who were Spanish speakers born in Turkey, had owned a farm in upstate New York; his parents were from New York City and had moved to Miami due to his father's work. His father is a lawyer who was appointed to the Committee for Economic Development by Richard Nixon as a college senior before moving into bankruptcy law. Baena's parents were divorced, which he credited in part with informing his dark sense of comedy. His first stepmother was manic depressive and, under Florida's Baker Act, was frequently institutionalized but then released, with Baena later commenting on systemic challenges in mental health care. He had a brother and two step-siblings.

After attending Killian High School, Baena graduated from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in film, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue directing. Without planning to do so, he achieved a minor in medieval studies at NYU after taking multiple classes when he "was hard-core into the alchemy shit". He also took classes relating to philosophy.

Career

1999–2012: Early career

Baena was a production assistant for filmmaker Robert Zemeckis on ''What Lies Beneath'' and ''Cast Away'' (both 2000). The films were shot back-to-back and Zemeckis then took a production break, causing Baena to seek other employment. He became an assistant editor and, later, personal assistant for writer-director David O. Russell. Baena was originally hired to help edit an online documentary, '' Benny Hernandez'', before Russell asked him to contribute some writing ideas for it; the project was ultimately left unfinished. After a year and a half of working together, a minor car accident injured one of Baena's eyes. Partially to keep his spirits up and pass the time during his recovery, Russell began discussing story ideas with Baena. The two ended up collaborating on four scripts together, including '' I Heart Huckabees'', which Russell directed in 2004, and Jay Roach's ''Meet the Fockers'' (also 2004), for which they made uncredited revisions. The philosophical ''I Heart Huckabees'' was noted for the ambition in its storytelling; it was not a commercial success, and polarized critics. By 2005 it had become a cult hit, and soon found a place in the pop culture zeitgeist. In 2023, Robbie Collin and Tim Robey wrote in ''The Telegraph'' that it was one of the best box-office bombs, citing its rewatchability two decades later.

Before he began directing, Baena continued working as a screenwriter, mostly for studio assignments and rewrites. Warner Bros. Pictures appointed him the screenwriter for the comedy ''The Awakening of Jean-Luc Barbara'' in 2006, which was still in development in 2010. He performed rewrites on Rami and Etan Cohen's ''Revenge of the Jocks'', a reverse take on ''Revenge of the Nerds'', in 2011. At the same time he was writing an indie adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway memoir ''A Moveable Feast''. Having always wanted to be a director, Baena considered screenwriting "a means to an end" and was critical of his own writing ability. In 2012, he co-judged a short film script competition curated by Roman Coppola, and played a fictionalized version of himself in the film '' The End of Love''; a dramatization of actor Mark Webber's life, Baena appeared in ''The End of Love'' alongside Aubrey Plaza, his partner and Webber's '' Scott Pilgrim vs. the World'' co-star.

2012–2017: Directorial debut and producing with Destro

Baena had planned for the comedy-drama '' Joshy'' to be his directorial debut, but actor and collaborator Adam Pally had to postpone for personal reasons. Baena then decided to work on the zombie comedy '' Life After Beth'', from a script he started writing in 2003, which became his debut. This film had been in production but shelved shortly after it was written, and was only picked back up after comic actress Aubrey Plaza was looking for a role and her agent remembered the script; with Plaza attached, the production resumed. ''Flavorwire'' wrote that "Baena's control of the material is occasionally uncertain", while Mark Kermode felt Baena "kept things just the right side of believable, eschewing explanation in favour of cracked domesticity." ''Life After Beth'' received mixed reviews; the Rotten Tomatoes (RT) critics' consensus suggested the idea was too thin to sustain a whole film, though bolstered by Plaza's performance. In 2016, it was ranked the 38th best ever zombie film and described as both "the best zom-rom-com since ''Shaun Of The Dead''" and a "mumblecore relationship break-up zomcom". It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, the same festival at which ''Joshy'', as Baena's second film, premiered in 2016.

After ''Life After Beth'', Baena worked on adapting '' Lysergic'', the autobiography of Krystle Cole that he had optioned, and suggested he might like to direct ''Doctor Strange'' as he was a fan of the character. When production resumed on ''Joshy'', Baena provided his large comedic cast with a 20-page outline, rather than a script, as an experiment to "keep people in the moment." Baena did not audition but cast people he knew would be able to work in such a film. The film's RT critics' consensus highlighted Baena's direction for "strik nga unique, disarmingly heartfelt blend of dark humor and tragedy". The ''Los Angeles Times'' praised that despite its improvisational nature, "the film never feels unfocused or messy"; Christy Lemire felt Baena's work had improved since his debut; and Glenn Kenny

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