Movie Reviews
Michael Showalter Showcases His Talents
Don Hammond |
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 A self-described “huge movie buff” who once dreamt of teaching film, Michael Showalter is a man of many talents. He’s a writer, producer, director and actor, among other things. Audiences might know him best from his work as a writer, producer and principle cast member in 2001’s Wet Hot American Summer. Since then, he’s been working hard writing and performing with the Stella comedy troupe, which has an upcoming series on Comedy Central. He once again displays his variety of talents as writer, director and star of The Baxter.
“In my mind I’ve always aspired to being a filmmaker," Showalter states. "I think this has been an evolutionary process of just getting to the point of starting with sketch comedy and then graduating to writing a sketch comedy movie, and then graduating from writing a sketch comedy movie to writing a movie. Maybe my next movie will just be about people.”
Some people have likened Showalter’s clean divergence from mainstream modern comedy to the work of Frank Capra and other early filmmakers. Showalter embraces that distinction. He says he’s not sure if that reminiscent style can make a mainstream comeback, but adds, “I’m fairly convinced that what I think is funny isn’t necessarily what the rest of the world does, so I don’t know what pulse I have my finger on. But I know that, in screening the movie--if word can get around--people really like it, really appreciate kind of being left off that hook for one movie at least. It’s true the trend in comedy is so much toward 'let me just shock you with how gross we can get'--and I certainly participate in that, too--but [with The Baxter] the laughter is not coming from a place where you need to take a shower after you laugh or anything like that; it’s just sweet.”
The Baxter is a film that parodies and yet works within the construct of the romantic comedy, and Showalter is conscious of both sides of the dichotomy. He says, “I’m both sending up the genre, but at the same time embracing it, because I do love romantic comedies and I care about my characters and I want them to succeed and everything, so it’s a little bit of both. It’s not Scream for romantic comedy; it’s sincere.”
 Part of what inspired Showalter to write The Baxter was the similarities that he shares with Elliot Sherman, the main character whom he plays. “At the time I made the movie, they were closer than they are now. It’s been a little over a year since I made the film. And making a movie for me is a transformative experience because you’re like scared out of your pants for six months or something dealing with people, and that’s Elliot’s biggest problem is dealing with people, and that was maybe mine, too. But I identify with Elliot: Elliot tries too hard and means well. Things don’t come as easily to Elliot as they do to Bradley [Lake, the character to whom Showalter’s character loses his latest love], and that’s what makes me like him; that’s what makes me identify with Elliot.”
The Baxter seems to make a statement about the old adage that nice guys finish last, but Showalter doesn’t necessarily agree. He says, “It sure seems like it, but this movie, I think, is a fairy tale, and there’s no real lesson here about life; I feel like nice guys find nice girls. But it’s a movie that uses Hollywood’s version of love as its theme, and that’s certainly not the real world.”
When asked about audiences having trouble connecting with his character, Showalter replies, “I am worried about that. I think that will happen, that there will be people who are alienated by my performance. [Elliot’s] very stylized. I tried to stay true to that character; I really tried to pluck that guy out of a movie and put him in the central role. I didn’t make him into a leading man; he is that guy--he is a doofus and a sort of laughing stock at times, so I guess that’s just a risk I’m going to have to live with. But I hope people see that he’s a human being.”
 When people hear about The Baxter they inevitably ask what a baxter is. Showalter gives several examples from recent romantic comedies. “Well, Ralph Bellamy did it about 30 times over his career in like 30 movies, and more recently Ben Stiller in Reality Bites is a classic baxter. And I was talking to some people about Albert Brooks in Broadcast News--he's a good baxter, and Teri Garr in Tootsie is a good baxter. They're in every movie; there's a baxter in every romantic comedy. In Four Wedding and a Funeral the guy ends up marrying the girl they call Platypus Face or Duck Face, and she's sweet and she's nice, she's just not Andie MacDowell. God forbid you're not Andie MacDowell, you're just a person. In Serendipity John Corbett plays a baxter; he's in the asshole category of a baxter. There's like a subgenre of baxters, [like the] asshole baxter in Old School. In The Jerk there's the abusive baxter. But in each case, the minute you see them you know they're wrong. The instant they walk onscreen they give you some information that immediately makes the audience turn to the person sitting next to them and say, ‘He's wrong for her. It'll never work out.' In Keeping the Faith Ben Stiller goes out on a date and she punches him in the stomach, but before that she laughs; the minute she laughs, you know she's wrong for him. So in this movie when we see Bradley's girlfriend and she snorts when she laughs, we're immediately suspicious whether or not Bradley and her are going to last. So, I'm playing with that whole idea that the characters have these quirks about their personalities that we've been conditioned to believe equal wrongness.”
Showalter had a multi-layered process for writing The Baxter, and the story really flowed from the premise of following the ‘other guy’ from a traditional romantic comedy. Showalter says, “I tried to first imagine a Hollywood romantic comedy about Bradley and Caroline. So it's about this woman who meets this guy, and she's dated for 15 years throughout high school and college, and he comes back into her life and she's about to marry this schnook, and they keep running into each other and, through a series of misadventures, they realize they're madly in love with each other. That was the first layer. The second layer was actually, we're going to tell this story through this guy catching little snippets of that first story. We're only seeing the portions of the larger story that he was present for, and so there's more to Bradley and Caroline that the audience doesn't see--we just see as much as Elliot sees.”
 Sometimes when one person writes and directs the same movie, it is difficult while on the set to let go of what was written previously. As a director, Showalter encourages his actors to ad-lib in many situations. He comments, “As long as it's not playing against the story and it's for the story, I'm all for it. I'm not precious about dialogue at all; a good ad-lib is probably the best line in a movie. Peter [Dinklage] really came in and got right into the character and you kind of have to roll with it. My job is really just to make sure they're staying within the story and the boundaries of the story. I actually think when the scene is really tight in terms of the structure, it's the actors outlet because they always have something to go back to. We can veer off of this cause we can go back to it later.”
Of his many talents, Showalter finds acting to be the most difficult. He says, “I think with acting I can feel the most stuck. Directing and writing, I feel if I work at it hard enough and if I stay up late enough, I'll get it and I'll figure it out. There's a compass inside me with acting that is all I got, and if that's not good for you, we're fucked, because if I'm in something and you want me to do it like this and I can only do it like that and that doesn't work, then we're done because I can't do it any other way. And so I really admire actors who are adjustable and adaptable; it's exciting to watch.”
Showalter is currently working on a Comedy Central show with his sketch comedy group, Stella.
The Baxter is now playing in limited release.
For more information on The Baxter check out the movie's official website at www.thebaxtermovie.com.
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