THE BAXTER

Year: 2005
USA: IFC Films
Cast: Michael Showalter, Elizabeth Banks, Michelle Williams, Justin Theroux, Zak Orth, Michael Ian Black, Katherine Lloyd Burns, Peter Dinklage, Paul Rudd, Katherine Powell, John Devries, Donna Mitchell, Haviland Morris, David Wain, Jim Demarse, Leslie Lyles, A D Miles, Joe Lo Truglio, Seth Herzog, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Peter Stadlen, Abigail Wathen, Gabriel Millman, Sarah Drew, Chris Spain, Maylouise Burke, Ken Marino, Audrie Neenan, Bobby Tisdale, Michael Portnoy, Maya Goldsmith, Jenny Maguire
Director: Michael Showalter
Country: USA
USA: 91 mins
USA Rated: PG-13 for brief sexual humor and some drug references
USA Release Date: 2 September 2005 (Limited Release - Los Angeles)
USA Release Date: 26 August 2005 (Limited Release - New York)


Synopsis

In every romantic comedy there's that scene at the end where the leading man bursts through the chapel doors just as the leading lady is about to marry the wrong guy. This movie is about the guy left at the altar. The wrong guy. That guy is called the Baxter. The Baxter is the type of guy you 'settle' for because you can't be with the one you love.

Tax accountant Elliot Sherman (writer/director/star Michael Showalter) is a Baxter. Nice but safe he's been left at the proverbial altar several times and always seems to be the one that loses out.

But not this time as he decides to take the plunge one final time when he meets his dream woman, beautiful magazine editor Caroline Swann (Elizabeth Banks). Then as always her long lost, hunky high school sweetheart appears from nowhere...

Elliot feels his life descending into gloom again when he encounters Cecil Mills (Michelle Williams) who tells Elliot, "You're problem is that your not willing to take the risk. Leading men take risks."

Asserting himself for the first time, Elliot instigates a series of escalating comic events determined to leave Baxter-hood behind forever.