Thursday, October 26, 2023
The Holdovers
The film opens right before Christmas in 1970 at Barton Academy in New England, a Christian boarding prep school that is mostly attended by privileged students. When the adjunct professor of ancient history, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) first appears on the screen, the first thing we notice are the bottles of booze on his desk. Yes, he loves his whiskey as much as he loves teaching, even though students dislike him, nor does he go easy on his students evidenced by the low grades that he gives them.
As most students are getting ready to leave for the holiday break, Paul is given the duty as the only holdover faculty to remain on campus to babysit a handful of students because they have nowhere else to go. One of these students is Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), who is ditched at the last minute from a vacation to the Caribbean by his mom and his step-dad. Even worse, a few days later, he becomes the only student left to be stuck with Paul on campus, and clearly neither of them enjoys the company of the other.
Besides these two lonely souls on campus, the head-cook Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) also stays because she is still grieving her son Curtis, also a Barton graduate, who died in Vietnam, and Barton is the last place they parted. Mary isn't really fond of Paul, but they do share common interests of loving whiskey.
As Christmas approaches, the trio try their best to lift the holiday spirit. They get to know each other and learn from each other better, and develop an unlikely bond. Angus ends up learning so much more from Paul than any class he has ever taken in a classroom.
Not only is the film set in 1970, the director Alexander Payne painstakingly crafted the film to have the '70s look as well, as if the film was made during that period. The aspect ratio, the saturation, the credit roll, the music, the songs, and of course the set, all bring us back to the '70s. But that cinematic achievement is only the icing on the cake. What really wins you over is his old-school style filmmaking while telling an engrossing character-driven story.
Even though we have seen similar tales about aspiring teachers giving guidance to coming-of-age prep school students as in "Dead Poets Society" (1989), and we can predict from the beginning where this movie is going, the director Alexander Payne is still able to make this story refreshing and engaging, often quite funny with a good heart.
This film reunites Paul Giamatti with the director Alexander Payne since "Sideways" (2004), and once again it is a collaboration in perfection. Paul Giamatti completely immersed himself into the character, and it seems only he can convincingly deliver lines like "history is the explanation of the present" in a museum, just like he is lecturing in a classroom.
Although Dominic Sessa looks much older than a 17-year-old, unlike any of those preppy students in "Dead Poets Society" (1989), his film debut is quite impressive and he creates a memorable character.
The Christmas holiday in 1970 was probably the worst holiday ever for these characters, but their touching story lives on, thanks to Alexander Payne's superb filmmaking.
"The Holdovers" opens in the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday, November 3, 2023.
