The Holdovers

Film Notes

Alexander Payne has been accused of looking down on his characters in films like "Election," "Citizen Ruth," and "Nebraska." I've often found this criticism a little shallow but understandable, given the goofy personalities dominating those films and the line between finding people entertaining and mocking them. I bring this up because his latest, "The Holdovers," contains not a scintilla of this element of his career. On the contrary, he loves these people. You can feel it in every frame, every line delivery, and every plot choice. And in an age of increasing cynicism, I think many people will love them too.

Payne bounces back from the disastrous "Downsizing" by reuniting with the star of arguably his most beloved film, "Sideways." Paul Giamatti gets his richest part in years as Paul Hunham, a brutal professor at the prestigious Barton Academy in the early ‘70s. (Payne joked in his intro that he's been basically making ‘70s comedies his whole career, so he figured he'd finally set a film then.) Hunham is generally disliked by students and staff, although a colleague named Lydia (Carrie Preston) does make the grumpy old man Christmas cookies. When Hunham isn't handing out failing grades and assignments over Christmas break, he's yelling at students for the slightest infractions. He's one of those guys who doesn't have much power in his life, so he uses it belligerently, leaving him few friends.

Every holiday break, a few kids have to stay over instead of going home, which requires a lonely man like Paul to keep an eye on them, even assigning schoolwork because that's really all he knows to do. Through a series of events, the holdovers this break end up being pretty much just Paul, a student named Angus (Dominic Sessa in a breakout role), and the head cook Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph). They're three people at very distinct chapter breaks in their lives, but they will influence each other in a heartwarming and genuine way. David Hemingson's script is about those wonderful turns in our lives when a stranger can shift us off in a new direction that we hadn't considered and how they can come long after we think we're done adjusting. It's got some undeniable clichés, but Payne and his crew find a way to make the life lessons organic, refusing to build their dramedy on predictable plot twists. After all, this one is about the unpredictability of life.

If Hunham is the reluctant father figure of this trio, Mary is the mother, a grief-stricken woman who has just lost her son in the Vietnam War. Randolph is understated and moving, finding the weight of grief. It just seems harder for her to move through the world. I can't imagine the pain of losing a kid, but I believe it would make a lot of days like quicksand. On the other side of the table, Angus is a 15-year-old with razor wit but the kind of aggression that comes with uncertainty. His parents don't want him over the holidays. He's not sure where he goes after Barton. It could even be to Vietnam. To say that he reaches out to Hunham for guidance would be an exaggeration, but these two initial enemies start to understand one another. Hunham is a man who starts to examine how he got here through the friendship of a young man examining where he's going.

All of this doesn't capture how consistently funny "The Holdovers" is from beginning to end. Payne leans into Giamatti's irascibility in the early scenes in hysterical ways that make it more powerful when those walls start to fall. Randolph doesn't get many laughs but knows how to nail a punchline when given one. The real stand-out here is Sessa, who starts off a bit one-note but develops alongside the film. This is one of those acting turns wherein it feels like you're watching a future star. He has the energy of both a leading man and a quirky character actor at the same time. You know, how it felt with ‘70s comedies when charm and relatability were key, and idiosyncrasy wasn't a crime. Sessa would have been a star then. He will be one now.

Hollywood has a long history of stories of "makeshift families that learn something," but then why does "The Holdovers" feel so fresh? It's probably because it's been so long since one of these stories felt this true. Payne and his team recognize the clichés of this life lesson, but they embed them with truths that will always be timeless. Everyone has that unexpected friendship or even mentorship with someone who forever altered their direction in life. And everyone has that young person who has shocked them out of their stasis, either through revealing what they have become or failed to be. "The Holdovers" is a consistently smart, funny movie about people who are easy to root for and like the ones we know. Its greatest accomplishment is not how easy it is to see yourself in Paul, Angus, or Mary. It's that you will in all three.

Brian Tallerico, Roger Ebert.com, October 27, 2023

‘The Holdovers’ Review: Alexander Payne Reunites With Paul Giamatti in What Feels Like a Lost ’70s Classic.

Set around Christmas in an elite New England prep school, the 'Sideways' director's portrait of a prickly history teacher is the rare exception to the complaint that 'they don’t make ’em like they used to.'

We’ve all seen our share of stories about inspirational teachers. “The Holdovers” is dedicated to the opposite sort: a hard-ass named Paul Hunham whom everyone hates. The feeling is mutual, as Mr. Hunham considers most of the kids enrolled at Barton Academy to be entitled little monsters, and the administration to be even more corrupt. Judging by the evidence director Alexander Payne provides, Mr. Hunham’s not wrong. But he is uncharitable, and on that count, the movie couldn’t be more different: It’s a generous drama about three wounded souls stranded at Barton over Christmas break, during which this coldhearted boarding school Scrooge gets a welcome chance to thaw.

The year is 1970, but “The Holdovers” is not your typical period movie. Instead, it feels as if Payne (a heroic film preservation advocate) unearthed this vintage artifact from the era in which it takes place. From the old-school MPAA rating to the stylized treatments of the Focus Features and Miramax logos, plus strategically deployed zooms and a faux-celluloid filter applied in post, “The Holdovers” could pass for a lost Hal Ashby movie, circa “The Landlord,” right down to the character-focused, socially conscious way Payne and screenwriter David Hemingson go about telling the story.

But that story is just a delivery device for something altogether deeper and more humane. Peer beyond the perfectly satisfying Christmas-movie surface, and “The Holdovers” is a film about class and race, grief and resentment, opportunity and entitlement. It’s that rare exception to the oft-heard complaint that “they don’t make ’em like they used to.” The most obvious giveaway that the movie was actually made in the 21st century is the presence of Paul Giamatti, slightly more grizzled than we last saw him, reunited with the helmer who gave him his greatest role, as the curmudgeonly Miles in 2004’s “Sideways.”

Hunham shares many of Miles’, er, qualities: cynicism and frustration, coupled with a Tourette-like tendency to lash out at those of which he’s either jealous or judgmental. He’s also got alcohol problems, and in this case, eyes that point in different directions (a detail that could have seemed cruel, but is handled with the right mix of empathy and humor). There’s a bit of Ignatius J. Reilly to Hunham — or “Mr. Walleye” to his students, who trash-talk the taskmaster for his unfortunate ocular condition and the rotten-fish smell they associate with him — though he’s gainfully employed at a post far beneath his intellect. Hunham should be teaching the classics at an Ivy League school, instead of ancient history to ungrateful teens.

An early scene shows Hunham handing graded final exams back to his students, whom he refers to as “vulgar little Philistines” and “reprobates.” Most of them get D’s and F’s. One boy, a pompous rich kid planning to spend his holidays in St. Kitts, manages to score a B+. This is Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa, who suggests a young Adam Driver), who teases one of the classmates condemned to spend Christmas at Barton. No one wants this sentence, which is akin to being orphaned — and worse, means being monitored at every moment by Mr. Hunham.

Normally “holdover” duty would fall to one of Hunham’s colleagues, but the headmaster (Andrew Garman) wants to punish Hunham for flunking a legacy student the semester before. A graduate of Barton himself, Hunham has an entirely too rigorous set of expectations for the kids who pass through its halls today, fueled by what may well be a desire to see them do better than he has with his life. There’s a lot of self-hatred buried deep in the character, and excavating that is one of the many levels on which the movie succeeds. But more important is the dynamic between him and the other Christmas detainees.

At first, he’s tasked with minding four boys unable to go home for the break. Then Angus’ mother calls and cancels their plans for St. Kitts. Suddenly, this brat is stuck doing time alongside the twerp he’d tormented — but not for long. Through a last-minute adjustment, the group shrinks to just Mr. Hunham, Angus and kitchen manager Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who’s coping with the first Christmas without her son, Curtis, a graduate of Barton who was killed in Vietnam. Incidentally, Barton men almost never enlist. Their rich parents can usually pull strings, getting them placed in fancy universities. But Curtis didn’t have the resources for that. And neither, we learn in time, did Paul Hunham.

As Payne’s fans will recall, the satirist’s second feature, “Election,” also took place in high school. His worldview seems to have mellowed since, in a positive sense, which isn’t a knock against the mocking sting of his earlier work so much as an appreciation of the way he’s now able to put flawed characters in amusing situations, without rigging the laughs at their expense. Hunham demonstrates a formidable wit, launching into unsolicited anecdotes about ancient Rome and quoting Latin his listeners don’t have the capacity to translate. He’s also wicked enough to extemporaneously lob Armando Iannucci-caliber insults at those he resents.

Hunham doesn’t seem to realize that impressionable adolescents should be treated with, well, kid gloves. Luckily, Mary’s there to remind him, serving as both comedic relief and the film’s emotional core as Hunham slowly comes to acknowledge that he’s taking his own disappointments out on Angus. As contemporary character actors go, no one does consternation better than Giamatti. But it’s more than just shtick here. Hunham wears his misanthropy like a kind of armor, and true to its early-’70s influences, “The Holdovers” takes the time to chip away at that shell, revealing the personal details that explain so much of his and Angus’ psychology. Meanwhile, Sessa holds his own opposite Giamatti, coming across like a young Adam Driver: tall and gangly, with sharp features, and the capacity to suggest wells of emotional turmoil beneath the surface.

Payne teases several romantic subplots, flirting with the possibility of taking manipulative shortcuts — tricks that would’ve been surefire ways to wrench tears from his audience — but wisely steers the focus back to his characters and the work they still need to do on themselves. It would’ve been too easy to tug the standard hero-teacher heartstring, though there’s no question that Hunham learns as much from the holiday as his student does. In the end, rather than serving up another “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” Payne pioneers a more original “Goodbye, Mr. Chip on His Shoulder.”

Peter Debruge, Variety, Aug 31, 2023

What you thought about The Holdovers

Film Responses

Collated Response Comments

117 members and guests attended this screening. 66 of you gave a response which is a 56% response rate and delivered a score of 4.73. This score makes The Holdovers the MOST POPULAR FILM of the season so far. River is the LEAST POPULAR FILM with a score of 3.76. Thanks so much.

Your comments are collected below.

“One of the many things that impresses here is that this feels exactly like a film from the seventies rather than an homage to seventies styling, right from the vinyl scratches over the credits. That snow has surely blown in straight from 'Love Story'. Another is that, given a Christmas setting and a trio of characters mired in their own problems sequestered together, the plot largely sidesteps the obvious clichés on the way to a pleasing resolution. Randolph and Sessa are excellent but the film hangs on Giamatti giving his familiar curmudgeonly character humour, depth and a reasonably convincing 'journey' as the bitter, furious and resigned but still enthusiastic teacher of utterly uninterested pupils”.

“A delight, a different kind of Christmas cracker! The Holdovers looked like a film produced during the 70s cinema, with some imperfections, screen wipes and sound mix popping and crackling, drawing the viewer into the film's atmosphere. Performances by Giamatti, Randolph, and Sessa (from his first smirk as Angus Tully) were sharp, witty and sad; Tully is fearless and confident, Hunham's tetchy insults, or Mary Lamb's constant pain of loss hold our attention. No empty nostalgia here though for hurt, broken people left empty for the Christmas season, as we witness the main characters almost become a found family. Mary has a more positive attitude than either Hunham or Tully, giving some sense that resonates with them. Hunham and Tully have a series of misadventures, the rather grim Christmas dinner in the school cafeteria, a surprise trip to Boston, where both have encounters that create a closer bond between them. The film doesn't succumb to sentimentality even when Hunham rescues Tully from military school. He is emotionally involved with someone else, something not experienced for decades. Life is a b*tch sometimes and the emotion at the end is deftly understated yet devastating as a result. Enjoyed the soundtrack of Christmas classics but wondered if they were overdone?”

“Great acting and direction. An interesting study of relationships and how you should think before judging. Enjoyed the back stories and they all contributed to the depth of storytelling. Really enjoyed it”.

“What a great film choice for our Christmas special. I am not a person who dwells much on the past but as one who spent 10 years as a child at an all-boys boarding school – my father was in the army – and even more relevant, who was a 'holdover' during a Christmas holiday when 11 years old, this film brought back many memories. Especially poignant were the occasions of casual cruelty between students, the sense of isolation from family and occasionally of abandonment. All were evident in this sensitive production. It also reminded strongly of the type of teacher who professes knowledge of the outside world but in reality, has spent a life in academia and understands very little outside of teaching their subject. In this film the goodness and sympathy inherent in the teacher are finally expressed and in a way that makes, we suspect, a huge difference to the life of the boy most affected. I loved the performances of all the main characters who were fully credible for me. Well done GFS”.

“A very good film. Particularly impressive was the music soundtrack which complemented the action! rather than overwhelm it”.

“Fabulous script. Strong performances from the main 3 characters. And a great soundtrack to bind it altogether”.

“Best film we have seen at the Film society. Excellent story and well-acted by everyone”.

“Outstanding performances by the 3 lead roles”.

“Loved it – just what I needed at this time of year – lovely music too!”

“Bravo”. “Very enjoyable. Great evening. One of the best this season”.

“Great performances. Paul G amazing”.

“Delightful and insightful. Exquisite marriage of scenes to songs. Perfect pacing – never dragged. Ideal choice for a feelgood Christmas”.

“When I saw the programme for this season, I was really looking forward to this film. And it exceeded my expectations’”.

“Challenging but perceptive. A constructive film to have made”.

“I enjoyed this film very much indeed. A touching relationship unfolded between the boy and his teacher”.

“Humour, psychology of human relations. Good music”.

“Really good for Xmas film”. “Superb – loved it”.

“Told a story full of emotional and a wonderful mix of sadness and glee”.

“A great portrayal of developing relationships with humour nd empathy”.

“Fantastic”.

“Really good acting and a wonderful script full of honesty, humour and pathos. Loved the ending and great soundtrack”.

“Perfect for this time of years film”.

“Just the right feelgood film for Christmas”.

“A modern Christmas classic. Powerfully....”

“Wonderfully acted and filmed which helped convey all the emotions of the film”.

“Great Christmas film”. “Ending was unnecessary let down. Didn’t need to be sugary either”.

“Brilliant movie- loved the soundtrack”.

“Sad but charming”. “Loved it”.

“Very enjoyable. Funny but with some pathos – loved the music”.

“What a beautiful movie about humanity. I took away that if we get to know people better then we would be able to understand and help them better. And if we did that then the world would be a more interesting and beautiful place”.

“Fantastic. Very heartwarming”. “Good Xmas choice”.

“Good old 1971! Nostalgia just before Xmas. Thank you!

“Sad but fun. Well-acted”.

“Conventional rebellion. The schools hide bound attitudes mirrored in the storyline”.

“Devastating and powerful critique of a central aspect of classroom life. Courageous and bold. Excellent performances”.

“Great acting”.

“Could have been a bit tauter, but very enjoyable”.

“Sentimentality over reality”.

“Too formulaic”.