The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, 2023)
In holdover news, there’s a great little movie out there called The Holdovers. It is masterfully directed by Alexander Payne, who may have made his best movie since Sideways (2004).
Working from a script by David Hemingson, the new movie sees Payne reunited with lead actor Paul Giamatti, who will always be remembered for his Sideways-role as Miles, the best man who took his soon to be married friend Jack (Thomas Haden-Church) on an eventful week-long road trip through California's wine country.
This time around Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a cantankerous history teacher at the elitist New England prep school Barton, who has to remain on campus over the 1970 Christmas season, to look after a quartet of students who for one reason or another cannot go home for the holidays. For Paul it is a form of punishment, not just for being generally arrogant and unlikable, but also for failing the son of one of Barton’s most prominent donors.
The most prominent of Paul’s holdover students is 15-year old Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), who is not allowed to go to the tropical island of St. Kitts, because his mother wants to spend some private time with her wealthy new husband. Angus gets good grades, but due to his psychological make-up he is usually one step away from getting expelled.
The third mainstay of the movie is Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who as Barton’s head cook Mary Lamb is one of the few black people in this privileged white community. Mary’s son also went to Barton for a year, but because she couldn’t afford to send him to college, he was sent to Vietnam instead, where he was killed in action.
Mary’s story is the most poignant one, and The Holdovers makes notable points about class and race in American society, and the kind of injustices that persist in today’s society.
The story breaks away from Barton in the second half of the movie when the unlikely threesome defy the rules and go on a field trip to Boston, where Mary goes to visit her pregnant sister, while Paul and Angus find out more about each other.
It is clear that they recognize something in each other and, even though (or perhaps because) they hate each other’s guts develop a kind of father-son relationship, with Paul teaching Angus the movie’s most important lesson: instead of being just your father’s son, you can and have to be your own man.
The Holdovers is not only set in 1970, it also looks and feels like an old-fashioned seventies movie. Even going so far that the sound only comes from the screen (so don’t expect any surround sound on this one).
The time-period is painstakingly recreated through a meticulous production design, while the fabulous cinematography employs a number of nifty in-camera zooms for that extra special seventies effect.
It’s easy to say ‘they don’t make em like this anymore,’ but for my money The Holdovers is a not just a love letter to a bygone era, but also a plea to make more character driven dramas like this in the future.
It’s a winning movie with a great emotional impact, that will charm the socks off of every genuine movie lover. Giamatti is once again at his brilliant best as the cranky teacher, who is finally forced to let his guard down. Sessa is a true revelation as Angus. Even though he looks a little too old to play a 15-year old - I would have bought 17 - he is very convincing in all his scenes with the much more experienced Giamatti. Best of all though is Randolph, who plays Mary with such style and grace that she seems bound for all sorts of awards honor.
Yes, The Holdovers (which is also a box office term for movies after their first week in cinemas) will probably make the Oscar best picture nominations, with a fair number of other categories in contention too.
Note: The Holdovers is already out in the United States and France, and will be released in the run-up to the Oscar nominations in a lot of other countries in January.