Starring Ross Partridge and Greta Gerwig. Rated PG. Opens Friday, August 8, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

Movies about people making movies—and making them badly—are not exactly rare. In fact, with a semiplot loosely resting on four friends laughin’, lovin’, yellin’, and occasionally gettin’ scared out in the country, Baghead seems downright Canadian in its familiarity.

The setting is Southern California, however, and its participants make the guys in Swingers look mature. TV vet Ross Partridge plays Matt, the roguish alpha brain in a foursome that decides to break out of low-level acting work by creating their own vehicle. Matt talks on-and-off girlfriend Catherine (Elise Muller) and best pal Chad (Steve Zissis) into a weekend at a remote cabin to get their scriptwriting juices flowing.

Other things start moving when Chad brings his pixieish crush Michelle, who soon tells him he’s like a best friend and a brother. Sheesh! She’s played by indie girl Greta Gerwig, who starred in three micro-budget efforts by Joe Swanberg, as seen in the DIY Festival at Vancity Theatre, and if she ever gets to articulate herself, she might have the makings of a star.

Of course, the point of the easygoing, sloppily shot Baghead, if it has one, is that these people would be very different creatures if they knew how to put thoughts and feelings into words. Their clumsiness with each other and with themselves is the subject of the film, in which schlubs from the city try to make their own Blair Witch Project and instead discover the horror of turning 40 while lost in the woods.