Baxter, Vera Baxter is a 1977 French drama film written and directed by Marguerite Duras, based on her then-unpublished novel Vera Baxter ou les Plages de l'Atlantique.
Synopsis The film opens with Vera Baxter posing. In the next scene we are inside the bar of a hotel and hear the clerk respond to an inquiring woman about the luxurious seaside house and Vera Baxter. There's also a man named Cayre present, who has failed to get in touch with Vera Baxter. We see Vera again in a grande rental villa. She receives two visitors, and we hear her story about her marriage from these conversations.
Cast
Delphine Seyrig as the unknown woman Noëlle Châtelet as Monique Combès as Jean's mistress as the barman Claudine Gabay as Vera Baxter Gérard Depardieu as Michel Cayre
Themes and interpretations The Criterion Collection described Baxter, Vera Baxter as a "hypnotically unsettling journey into one woman's existential emptiness. Ensconced in a sprawling rental villa, the world-weary Vera Baxter ... receives visits from two women, including a mysterious stranger ... to whom she recounts a shocking story about her marriage, the way she lives, and the reasons for her malaise." Ivone Margulies, also writing for The Criterion Collection, viewed the film as "a harsh take on bourgeois conformity and prostitution, or, in [Duras's] words, 'an infernal circuit that shuttles her from the love of her children to her conjugal duties.'"
Home media Baxter, Vera Baxter was released by The Criterion Collection on Blu-ray and DVD on 28 February 2023 as part of the Two Films by Marguerite Duras box set along with India Song (1975).
References
External links
Baxter, Vera Baxter at AllMovie