I really didn’t expect to get a holiday film in October. I guess I could complain about the extension of the holiday season into the warm parts of autumn and hating on pumpkin spice, but honestly, that doesn’t matter with this film. Alexander Payne, famous for films like Election, Sideways, and The Descendents, is back with Paul Giamatti, a first since Sideways, on a new film, The Holdovers. How does this connect with the beginning of this review? Well it’s a film about a teacher named Paul Hunham, who is the most disliked teacher at a boarding school, Barton Academy, who ends up stuck with the job of being the teacher, having to watch all the kids who aren’t going home for the holidays. While there, he ends up making a connection with one of his more promising students, Angus Tully, played by Dominic Sessa. Who starts antagonistically but end up relating and gaining an understanding of each other. Rounding out the main cast is Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb, the head Cafeteria lady who also stays behind as she’s still grieving her son, who has recently passed and also went to this school.
The core of this film is how these three people end up relating to each other and becoming an ad-hoc family for these two weeks. Oh, I forgot this film takes place in 1971, so there are no phones and computers; people have to deal with each other and figure out ways to find stuff to do. Giamatti is great as this resentful teacher who doesn’t care about a child’s parents and their wealth over the achievement through their own merits and doing the work. Much of the film is centered around this man, his quirks, and how he constantly rubs people the wrong way. None of the students like him, and even his co-workers, for the most part, try to stay away from him, and you can see through the performance how that weighs on the man. Sessa holds his own with Giamatti on screen. His character isn’t annoying and has more depth than just being a problem teenager. Da’Vine Joy Randolph, like in other films, steals the show whenever she’s on-screen; she brings down the more over the top character reactions to some believability with the weight of her character. She easily becomes this woman when watching this story unfold. Her scenes with Giamatti open up his character to see that at least one adult doesn’t hate him or just barely acknowledges him as a troublesome, grumpy man. These two characters get to recognize their shared humanity more than their job during this period, and showing this growing friendship was nice to see, along with their time dealing with Angus as he struggles not being home.
Payne and his team went to great lengths to make this film feel like a movie from the 70s in how it looks and, at times, the framing of the shots. Well, maybe I should say it feels like it; the lighting and adding grain to the film pulls you deeper into this story and time. The music and score didn’t always stand out to me, but when it does stick out, it really helps scenes in their tone for me. The film is very funny, by the way. I know what I’m writing here isn’t making that apparent, but this film got jokes, and it lands them all. The humor, along with the drama, mixes well together in this. The Holdovers is a terrific film with heart and humor and might end up as one of my favorite new holiday films that I don’t think was planned as one.
Score: B+
RIOTUS 