Alexander Payne, acclaimed director of such modern classics as Nebraska, About Schmidt, Sideways and Election teamed up with television writer David Hemingson to create The Holdovers, an old fashioned heart-warming movie based loosely on the 1935 French film Merlusse about a strict teacher charged with looking after the students left behind at a boarding school during the Christmas break. Payne saw the picture and felt the idea could make for a compelling feature for him to direct. Hemingson had written a television pilot set in a boarding school and, based on that, Payne contacted him to write the feature film that would become The Holdovers, the first and, so far, only feature film to his credit. Payne felt that the story had an old-fashioned feel to it that wouldn’t gel with a modern setting and, wishing to avoid comparisons to Dead Poet’s Society’s 1950’s setting, chose the 1970’s. This opened up opportunities to showcase the differences between the rich kids in boarding schools and colleges and those who were being shipped off to South-East Asia to fight in Vietnam. It also allowed for The Holdovers to be filmed in such a way as to invoke an earlier style of filmmaking that has a grittier, cheaper film stock, look to it that was emblematic of movies of the decade.
The film takes place in the final weeks of 1970 at Barton Academy, an all-male boarding school in New England. Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is a strict, sarcastic classics instructor whose unwillingness to bend the rules to accommodate privileged students and their rich parents has landed him in hot water with the head of the school. His strict grading and stubbornness, as well as a hefty disdain for the legacy students in his classes, makes him unpopular with the faculty and the students alike. This holiday season he is assigned to stay at the school and watch over the handful of students who will not be going home for the holidays, one of which is Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a student whose mother and stepfather have decided to go on a late honeymoon at the last minute and leave him stranded at the school for the duration.
There also for the break is Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the head of the cafeteria who just recently lost her son in the Vietnam war. She and Paul have a mutual respect that he doesn’t share with the other staff, primarily because of her working class background and her easy acceptance of his personal foibles. Friction between Paul and the students is immediate as he looks at the situation as an opportunity to drive the students to further studying rather than enjoying their holiday break. This is interrupted when the wealthy father of one of the students decides to take his son on a skiing trip after all and everyone with permission from their parents is invited. This ends up being all of the students except Angus whose parents cannot be reached. Over the course of the remaining break Paul and Angus butt heads, fight against each other’s personalities, but eventually a respect for each other develops. Paul also realizes from this experience that just because someone comes from a wealthy family doesn’t necessarily mean they are coddled or privileged. Some of them may be coming from tough circumstances, just like he did.
Alexander Payne doesn’t consider The Holdovers to be a cozy film despite it often being labeled as such. I can agree with that assessment because although it does have many of those aspects to it it also keeps a sharp edge to some of the content that can often make it jarring. This is not the kind of film you put on TV while the whole family gathers around and watches it while sipping cocoa and eating Christmas cookies. It’s far from a family friendly film in many aspects not just including the harsh language. There is a bitter, mean spirited aspect to Paul that is off-putting. Sure, many of the students going through the boarding school are probably privileged little brats but the ones we meet are not portrayed that way. Of the five holdovers the closest we have to that is Jason Smith, the football team quarterback. He’s portrayed as a likeable good-natured individual, though, who is more than willing to take the others with him when leaving with his father for a skiing vacation. Teddy is a bit more of a bully but he is acting out because of some perceived trouble at home, ostensibly stuck over the holidays because his parents claim to be remodeling his room. Angus rightfully points out that no one remodels their house in the dead of winter during the holidays.
Angus is a bit of a hot head, frustrated with the sudden change of plans that not only leave him at the school over the break but also ends any chances of him visiting his father who has been confined to a mental institution in Boston. He is generally a good person, though, looking out for his fellow students when embarrassing things happen to them. Paul sees him as a major pain in the butt but will eventually see past all of that and see a person who is smart and has tremendous potential, so much so that he will eventually jeopardize his own career to allow Angus to stay in school and not get shipped off to a military academy.
The gradual understanding that grows between Paul and Angus goes beyond the generational gap between the two. We learn late into the film that Paul was kicked out of Harvard after an incident where his roommate plagiarized his work and then accused him of same. His roommate had rich parents who donated a lot of money to the University and thus was believed over him. This experience has instilled a bitterness in him over the privileged. When one of these legacy students is failing Paul’s course and his scholarship to Princeton is in jeopardy, he refuses to adjust the grade and allow the student to just skate on by despite the school relying on the generous donations from his wealthy father. Paul’s experiences at Harvard have colored his mindset and this mindset has never really been challenged until he gets to know Angus Tully.
Likewise, Angus gets to know Paul and understand why he is the way he is. While the two of them are in Boston they run into a former classmate of Paul’s. The encounter is amiable but Paul lies about his career and life to the man because, in his own words, the man isn’t entitled to his story. Paul is still bitter over the whole situation that has left him accepting the only job in academia he could get, working back at his old school rather than a successful career traveling to foreign countries and experiencing the history he loves so much.
Both Paul and Angus end the movie fundamentally changed individuals, at least in respects to each other. When classes commence Paul is just as strict with the class as he ever was, his opinion of them unchanged from just a few short weeks with Angus. A lesser script would have ended with him having this great epiphany, a change as abrupt as the Grinch’s in that Dr. Seuss story. But that isn’t a realistic ending and to go that route would have rang false. Paul’s change is more focused than that. He no longer sees Angus the same way as he sees the others and he gains a respect for him that allows him to make a major sacrifice to save him from being shipped off to military academy. This is not an act the Paul at the beginning of the film would have ever done. Likewise, Angus has a deeper appreciation for the man he despised at the beginning of the film. Little is said between them in their final moment but in those few awkward sentences so much is inferred and communicated.
This is a nice little throwback film the likes of which rarely get made anymore. In a world that has grown more and more cynical over the years it is nice to get a new film that has some real heart to it, even if that heart is sometimes shrouded in sarcasm and dry wit. Paul Giamatti rightfully was nominated for his dry, bitter and angry portrayal of Paul Hunham. There is so much nuance and undercurrent to his character that it is disappointing he didn’t take home the statue for this. Da’Vine Joy Randolph did, though, for playing a woman steeped in grief and struggling with making sense of a tragic loss in her life. The acting all around is top notch but that isn’t all that is in top form here. This is an excellent film that really spoke to me and became my favorite film of 2023, beating out Oppenheimer on my personal list. It was a surprising addition to the Oscar’s Best Picture nominations, not because it wasn’t good enough but because little dramas like this usually don’t garner this type of attention. It did and that hopefully brought it to the attention of a larger audience of moviegoers that needed to see a film like this for a change.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Mark Johnson
Best Actor: Paul Giamatti
Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (won)
Best Original Screenplay: David Hemingson
Best Editing: Kevin Trent
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Release Date: October 27, 2023
Running Time: 133 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Paul Giamatti, DaVine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa
Directed By: Alexander Payne
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