Baxter

Baxter is a bull terrier who, upon being adopted from the kennel where he was born, finds himself condemned to a rootless existence, shuttled between the homes of a series of human owners: first, an elderly woman whose timidity and neediness are repulsive to Baxter, driving him to seek a way out by any means necessary; next, a young couple whose amorous enthusiasm elicits his undying loyalty and delirious affection, until the addition of a new family member disturbs the trio’s happy equilibrium; and finally, a young boy whose all-consuming obsession with the lives and deaths of Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun betrays a nascent affinity for fascism, to Baxter’s surprise and delight. The canine protagonist, with his inexpressive facial features and impassive gaze, makes for a surprisingly introspective antihero: his interiority is made gloriously legible thanks to Maxime Leroux’s droll, dispassionate, yet unmistakably bestial voice-over, recalling the narration of a Camus novel, or of film noir at its most nihilistic. The first of two collaborations between director Jérôme Boivin and co-writer Jacques Audiard, adapted from Ken Greenhall’s 1977 novel Hell Hound, Baxter is at once a satirical work of pitch-black, bone-dry humor and a chillingly sober fable illustrating the interpersonal—and interspecies—mechanics of amorality and violence. DCP by Studiocanal at VDM, France.