The Baxter
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DVD details
Actor: Justin Theroux, Michael ShowalterBrand: Sony Pictures Home ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-12-13
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of The Baxter
DVD Review: Michael Showalter's take on what happens to the guy left behind at the altar
Summary: 4 Stars
How many times have you seen a movie where the girl is about to marry the wrong guy and the right guy shows up at the last moment and stops the wedding from taking place? I think "The Graduate" may well have been the first time I saw that particular commonplace of romantic comedy, but there are a few times that the formula is played with to good effect ("My Best Friend's Wedding" comes to mind). "The Baxter" is another attempt to take a new look at an old situation because it is really about the fellow left standing at the altar, a.k.a. the wrong guy. Therefore, the "Baxter" is the guy who does not get the girl and this film from writer-director-actor Michael Showalter seeks to rectify that result.
Showlater is Elliot Sherman, a CPA, whom we first meet when his wedding to Caroline Swann (Elizabeth Banks) is interrupted by her high school sweetheart, Bradley Lake (Justin Theroux), who has jetted in from Malta because he has a few things we wants to say to the woman in the wedding dress. We then go back to the beginning, when Elliot met Caroline, only to have this immediately revised to slightly earlier that same day when Elliot met Cecil Mills (Michelle Williams), his temp secretary for the day. Elliot and Cecil make a connection (they both are reading the dictionary for fun), but then Caroline walks in and he ends up dating and becoming engaged to her instead. We know what he sees in her, but what she sees in him is not at all clear, but that is the way these stories go. That would explain why their connection is made off screen, because it is necessary to get us from point A to point B (just like how King Kong gets from Skull Island to New York City in a cut rather than on that little boat).
There are a series of flashbacks when we find out that Elliot has been the Baxter for a long time as we watch him lose the girl in high school, college, and graduate school. So when Bradley shows up, having not seen Caroline in years, he knows what is coming. Elliot tries to fight back, but he is a Baxter and therefore doomed. But in this knowledge that what is going to happen is going to happen Elliot actually finds his salvation and when he go back to the beginning there is one rather significant addition in terms of what Elliot says before Bradley makes his grand entrance.
This ends up being something of a surprise since given the prologue to the film I was really expecting "The Baxter" would focus on the aftermath of being left at the altar and how Elliot picks up the pieces and ends up finding true love. Instead we go back to the beginning of Elliot's relationship with Caroline and watch the train wreck play out, but with a twist. Clearly Caroline and Bradley are constrained to playing to the types they represent, which is why their characters are ultimately comic rather than tragic, but that is also the main reason that Cecil stands out as being a much better fit for Elliot. Lots of people go to Dartmouth, but how many people read the dictionary as their choice for literature? We know they are perfect for each other and she knows it, but Elliot is a bit slow because, after all, he is a Baxter.
This 2005 film plays as more of a farce than a satire, and the paradox is that Elliot has to deserve his fate as a Baxter but somehow be able to break free of the role in the end. That requires Showlater to try and have it both ways and have a lot of the good will we feel towards his character to be established by his circumstances rather than his characteristics. I checked out this movie because of Michelle Williams and she is cute and quirky without becoming odd. The other standout performance in the film is Peter Dinklage as a gay wedding planner named Benson Hedges. If you have seen "The Station Agent," "Elf," "Threshold," or anything else, it will not surprise you that Dinklage steals pretty much every scene in which he appears.
Description of The Baxter
A charming romantic comedy that follows the twists & turns of a quiet young accountants life during the two weeks before the weeding to the girl of his dreams. Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 02/06/2007 Starring: Michael Showalter Justin Theroux Run time: 91 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Michael ShowalterBestsellers in DVD
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