Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with MiraJeff reporting in from Tribeca. While I don't agree with MiraJeff's below-mentioned views on PUNCH DRUNK LOVE (I think it's a beautiful and personal love story, one that sticks with you... and The Guzman rules the earth... and car flipping... and car crash... I love it!) I hope I share his views on this movie since he and everyone else in the world who sees this flick seems to fall in love with it. Anyway, here's his thoughts! Enjoy!
Good day AICN, the ever elusive MiraJeff here again with a review of Michael Showalter’s romantic comedy, “The Baxter,” which I’m delighted to say is a very fun time at the movies. Showalter, who wrote and played the lovable Coop in cult-classic “Wet Hot American Summer,” does triple-duty here as writer, director, and anti-leading man Elliot Sherman. I use the word “anti” because Elliot’s problem, as one character in the film informs him, is “you’re not willing to take a risk. Leading men take risks.” You see, Elliot is a Baxter, a term coined by Showalter to describe life’s “nice guys,” or in other words, the guys who never get the girl. The film begins with Elliot’s voice-over, and he goes on to narrate the film and help navigate its non-linear structure. Over a montage of Elliot’s girlfriends leaving him for more exciting men, he laments, “It’s kind of tragic to spend the rest of your life with someone you don’t love.” One girlfriend breaks up with him when an ex shows up with a sign simply reading “I’m sorry.” What’s worse is that Elliot never fights for his loved ones, always conceding that what happened is probably best for the relationship.
Later we are introduced to Cecil Mills (Michelle Williams), a Midwestern gal new to NYC who is filling in for Elliot’s secretary for the day. Showalter describes his film as a homage to the romantic comedies of the 1940’s, and his first meeting with Cecil is certainly in line with the tone of those films. The Baxter is a gut-busting farce that shares Wet Hot’s quirky sense of humor as we quickly see when fellow Baxter, Wendall Wims (Zak Orth) randomly pops up in the background of this introduction scene, flashing two opera tickets, perfect for Elliot and his fresh-faced new friend. The pair quickly hit it off, discovering that they’re both reading the dictionary. Cecil has just started the “G’s” which Elliot likens a classic. She’s particularly drawn to the word “gromwell,” a type of flower that she says has been impossible to find in the city, which she describes as “being a lot of concrete, though I haven’t been to Chinatown yet.”
Elliot is immediately smitten with her, but at the present time he is engaged to Caroline Swann (Elizabeth Banks), a beautiful, upper-class WASPy type. They plan on honeymooning in Yellowstone National Park, though they’ve been properly warned about its bears by Caroline’s earnest brother-in-law Louis (a delicious David Wain, director of WHAS). “I hear bears can smell menstrual blood from a mile away,” he awkwardly proclaims at a dinner party. After bragging about how he and Caroline have no secrets, Elliot is dismayed to hear about Bradley, her high school sweetheart, played by a scenery-chewing Justin Theroux. Needless to say, Bradley appears out of nowhere, dating one girl but still in love with Caroline and eager to reminisce on their naked high school exploits together during a blizzard, in an uproarious kitchen scene. Don’t want to ruin the line here, it’s that funny. There’s also a scene where Brad lets out a whisper of a fart that’s hilarious if you catch it.
So Elliot, having met the charming Cecil and found out about the skeletons in Caroline’s closet, goes to his buddy Ed (Michael Ian Black) for advice. Ed is the kind of guy who walks around his apartment all day giving bad advice in his underwear and a woman’s tank top. His wife takes wine tasting classes at the YMCA, or YWCA, as she corrects him. The character of Ed is a bit of a caricature but he works. In fact, everything bad in this movie works, from its eye-sore wallpapering to Showalter’s own nebbish acting.
After realizing he is falling for Cecil, he tries to learn more about her. He learns she’s an aspiring singer, though as soon as she began performing her own songs, she developed a serious case of stage fright. Her voice sounds so bad that it’s cute and lovable. Plus, she wants to take whistling classes, because she considers it a real craft. Which is why he’s so disappointed to discover Cecil has a boyfriend Dan (Paul Rudd), who is “a really nice guy.” Stay tuned after the credits to see his fate. In swooning over Cecil, Elliot begins to neglect his pending marriage to Caroline, and their relationship boils over in a great sequence involving Peter Dinklage as a gay wedding planner with a wandering eye. Dinklage owns the screen every minute he’s on it, pissed off that he’s been forced to trek all the way to Brooklyn to deal with this dysfunctional couple, though even he is appalled when Elliot says he wants his wedding colors to be yellow and black and the food to be Baha cuisine, which I believe is fish soaked in beer.
The entire cast does great work here from top to bottom, and Showalter is generous enough to give us one hilarious scene at a bar that brings back a host of WHAS veterans including A.D. Miles, Joe Lo Truglio, and Seth Herzog. The music by Theodore Shapiro and Craig Wedren is excellent, evoking Jon Brion’s “Punch Drunk Love” score, though this movie is far superior and what PDL could have and should have been.
The Baxter often feels like an elongated sketch about a lovelorn loser, albeit a very funny movie. At the beginning, Elliot’s attitude is that “something is better than nothing,” but by the end he has changed, as he’s learned to fight for the girl he loves and not let love slip through his fingers once more. The more I think about it, the more it kicks ass. It’s haunted me the last few hours so that I haven’t even thought about how bad Long Distance really was. Let me be among the first to herald Showalter as the next comedic genius, even if he is awkward and Brooklyny. He’s like Adam Sandler but nerdy instead of sporty.
Hats off to Showalter and everyone associated with this film, including IFC, a channel I’m always ready to support. So I thought I’d mention IFC’s Film Fanatic Challenge, which is being hosted this Friday and Saturday at Blondie’s Sports Bar on the West Side. For those visiting New York for the festival, as well as all film-lovin New Yorkers, it’s an excellent time of movie trivia and general drunkenness hosted by a very funny comedian, Jordan Hall, plus they raffle off an Ipod Mini both nights. That’s all for now. I’ll return in a jiff with reviews of Long Distance, Dead Man’s Shoes, and Antibodies. Til then…
