Amanda's Picks

 

If you are tired of long, noisy movies and have found yourself thinking “I miss the music of Tony Orlando and Dawn” (who doesn’t?), and winter in New England, you will love The Holdovers. This is the first film from Director Alexander Payne since 2017’s Downsizing, an offbeat movie you probably didn’t see, but I enjoyed. Payne also wrote and directed the 2011 Oscar-winning, Hawaii-set The Descendants, which would have been one of my favorite films of the 2000s even if it didn’t star George Clooney. 

In The Holdovers (R), Paul Giamatti, who starred in Payne’s 2004 indie hit, Sideways, is Paul Hunham, a curmudgeonly and demanding professor in a New England prep school in 1970. He drinks too much and has no social life. The students don’t like him, and his coworkers aren’t too fond of him either. 

After failing half his students the day before Christmas break, Paul ends up in charge of the boys who have to stay at school during the holiday, the “holdovers.”  A few days in, it ends up just being Paul and troubled, surly Angus (Dominic Sessa).  The school’s cook Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), is there too, cooking for the holdovers as she mourns the loss of her son who was killed in Vietnam. 

Despite the pain, abandonment issues, depression, etc. experienced by the three main characters, The Holdovers, has plenty of humor. You have to laugh when Mary explains The Newlywed Game to Paul, and Paul’s gift for insulting just about everyone is truly awe-inspiring. 

I think what I admire most about The Holdovers is how Payne and first-time screenwriter David Hemingson take a host of movie cliches, from the makeshift “family” thrown together for the holidays to the road trip that bonds the main characters, and makes these situations feel fresh and real. Hemingson will likely snag an Oscar nomination for his sharp and sweet screenplay, not bad for a guy who not too long ago was writing episodes of the animated series American Dad.

The sense of time and place also feels authentic, another Payne trademark. It’s not just the clothes, the cars and some truly impressive sideburns, but the way the movie is shot in an almost throwback, slightly grainy 70s style.  While we do get a few songs from 1970 (the aforementioned Tony Orlando and Dawn), the score isn’t used as a constant reminder that this is 1970 because it doesn’t need to. Payne also filmed in schools and locations throughout Massachusetts, not in studios. Having spent many winters in Massachusetts, I could almost feel my toes freeze in the theater watching the snow fall on screen.

Paul and Angus don’t have much in common except they both have a way of using their words to get in trouble. Giamatti is terrific as a guy you don’t want to like, but of course, you end up liking. Hunham resents his privileged charges and truly wants nothing to do with many of them. However, when he does connect with someone like Mary, or a coworker, it’s just lovely to watch. 

Randolph, who made quite an impression in the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building, is outstanding as Mary. Her grief is constant, but it’s more like something she has to carry than express. She doesn’t scream or cry, but when she touches her son’s army uniform, she breaks your heart.  This is Sessa’s first film and you can almost see him become a better actor as he holds his own with Giamatti and Randolph. 

The Holdovers introduces us to layered, interesting characters of a particular time and place without feeling compelled to turn them into heroes or martyrs. It’s a story about how spending time getting to know people can change your lives, maybe a little, maybe a lot. Watching The Holdovers reminds you of the days when you didn’t have a phone in your hand all the time and had to actually talk to and relate to people. It’s the kind of movie that we don’t see much anymore. Hopefully, Payne won’t wait another six years to bring us his next story.

The Holdovers: 4.5 out of 5 Stars