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. 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, 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. 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. and suggested he might like to direct
Doctor Strange as he was a fan of
the character. The film's RT critics' consensus highlighted Baena's direction for "strik[ing] a 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 noted Baena's skill in tonally dictating his film.
Joshy was ranked the fifth best ever mumblecore film separately by screenwriter Jason Hellerman and critic Mike Bedard, with Bedard also describing it as "post-mumblecore".
Jake Johnson as well as some of Baena's filmmaker friends had acting roles in
Joshy; the premise of which was based on the strange things found when Johnson, Baena and friends had dug out Johnson's garden.
Joshy was Baena's first film to feature actress
Alison Brie, albeit briefly, for whom it was her
producing debut. She produced alongside
Liz Destro of Destro Films, who had produced Baena's previous films; Baena only proceeded to develop
The Little Hours after pitching it to Destro. Inspired by passages from
The Decameron, which Baena had studied, the film was again largely improvised and based in the disconnect of medieval beliefs to modern ones; Baena saw the potential for humor Reviews were impressed with how well the concept worked, and praised Baena's comedic direction, with
Mick LaSalle writing that "Baena combines a zany comic vision with a rare control of tone. [...] There's no winking or nudging, no straining for laughs. Baena devised the material, and he trusts it."
2018–2022: Creative partnership with Alison Brie Baena directed Brie two more times in the films
Horse Girl (2020) and
Spin Me Round (2022), which they co-wrote together. The latter also featured Plaza. Both actresses were involved in different capacities in Baena's only television work,
Cinema Toast, a 2021
anthology series that he created and
executive produced. Baena wrote and directed episodes in the series, which reinterpreted
public domain footage to tell modern stories. Baena and Brie were among the producers for
Cinema Toast and both of their co-written films, all of which were executive produced by the
Duplass Brothers. The pair pitched it to the Duplass Brothers, who joined and offered it to
Netflix. Baena and Brie wrote the screenplay together, and some of the film's dialogue was improvised. After premiering at
Sundance in 2020,
Horse Girl began streaming on Netflix and was the most commercially successful of Baena's works. Reviews noted the use and subversion of form to inform the story, which was generally praised but also criticized by Adrian Horton in
The Guardian. The pair again chose to subvert expectations in
Spin Me Round, the shoot of which was postponed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. They used the delay to expand the film outline into a more detailed script.
The Hollywood Reporter felt it was "amusing but the most lightweight" of Baena's films.
Style In his own words, Baena described his films as "destabilizing, unmoored, and full of chaos"; literary author
William Deresiewicz wrote they are "odd, generically hybrid, tonally complex". Ryan Gilbey wrote in an obituary for
The Guardian that despite some similarities and all sharing "some unforeseen emotional kick, the subjects and styles [of Baena's films] were strikingly dissimilar"; Gilbey added that Baena planned this intention, as he did not want to do the same thing more than once. – this was primarily because Baena enjoyed working with them and wanted to bring out new things from actors he enjoyed. He also found it advantageous to work with familiar actors due to his own "slightly nontraditional way" of writing and directing, so that he could rely on performers who understood his process. Baena typically wrote and worked from film outlines, rather than full screenplays, so his films could incorporate
improvisation, though his first and final films,
Life After Beth and
Spin Me Round, were more traditional. == Personal life and death ==