The Boss Baby

By: Alexandra Geisser

There is a time in one’s life when you think movies can get no stranger. You think, “The world can’t get any stranger than it already has, can it? We must have reached the carrying capacity of weirdness by now!” The world, indeed, can get much stranger. The Boss Baby is an excellent example of this.

The movie in itself is about teamwork, compromise and brotherhood. It shows the strange partnership between Boss Baby (Alec Baldwin), a baby raised in to run a proficient business, and Tim (Miles Christopher Bakshi), a normal seven year old with an overactive imagination. The movie is told through Tim’s point of view and is narrated by his adult self (voiced by Tobey Maguire).

However, the strange part of the narrative comes in when you realize that the Boss Baby… is a baby who has supposedly gone to business school. It’s a strange concept in itself and one is left to wonder how studios are coming up with ideas such as these.

Tim is our main character. He’s a seven year old kid with everything a seven year old kid could want or need. His parents love him deeply and make a great salary at a pet business called Puppy Co. in the marketing department. They tuck him in with hugs, kisses and his “special song” Blackbird by The Beatles (of which Tim is thoroughly convinced his parents wrote especially for him). Tim’s life comes to a crashing halt though when Boss Baby enters the picture. Boss Baby then begins to take all the love off of Tim and onto him.

Further complicating the storyline is that in the daytime Boss Baby is simply a baby in a business suit, a mostly normal infant with normal needs. But at night; however, Boss Baby takes on his true persona of just that––a bossy baby. Boss Baby, it turns out, works for a baby producing company (we are left unsure how the babies are created, but it is probably best left that way).

Without spoiling you, the basic story is that Boss Baby and Tim must team up together to get each other out of their respective lives. Boss Baby wishes to return to his office (hopefully with a promotion) and Tim wishes to have all of his parents love back on him. The motivations are simple and clear throughout the entire movie, making its points cleanly with each mention. Even when the two eventually form a sibling bond and experience what it’s like in each other’s worlds, they have their motivations and they stick to it until the last minutes of the film.

The most creative feature of the movie is Tim’s mind and the way it works. He’s seven years old throughout the majority of the feature and it’s obvious by the way he interacts with his environment. He imagines his alarm clock (a hilariously–placed Gandalf reference) to be alive and holds active conversations with it; and when he’s grounded, he imagines himself in a jail house; he sees himself as a ninja as he goes to sneak up on Boss Baby. This character is filled with exuberant life and makes every occasion (no matter how outrageous) colorful and electrifying,
As I don’t want to spoil the movie, I’m going to leave the rest for you to find out for yourselves. The movie, while definitely strange, is bright and colorful, making your whole day lively with every step! The brotherhood that forms between the characters is so heartfelt and real that one can’t help but enjoy it. The Boss Baby is a truly unique, yet admirably amazing movie.