The older I get the more and more I’ve grown to really appreciate Alexander Payne’s “Sideways.” His drama comedy about unfulfilled ambition, and arrested development is still a wonderful experience. “The Holdovers” is a character piece very much in the same vein, but while it might be a character piece it might also end up being one of the most unique Christmas movies ever made. Payne is wonderful at observing and dissecting such complex and unique characters, and with “The Holdovers,” he explores the lives, regrets, and frustrations of three immensely different people.
Paul Hunham is a brutal professor at the prestigious Barton Academy in the early ‘70s. Hunham is generally disliked by students and staff, leaving him with very few friends. Every holiday break, a few kids have to stay over instead of going home (otherwise known as “Holdovers”), which requires someone like Paul to keep an eye on them. Through a series of events, the holdovers this break end up being pretty much just Paul, a student named Angus, and the head cook Mary. They’re three people at very distinct times in their lives looking at a new semester that might also signal new chapters.
While I was afraid “The Holdovers” might have ended up being a cheesy movie about an inspirational teacher, Payne offers so much more, subverting a lot of the tropes to allow for a platform for self reflection and growing up. David Hemingson’s script allows for such an engaging often heartbreaking character piece that sets the light on three people in various stages of their lives. Although by all reasoning they wouldn’t have any association with one another, the circumstances allow for them to not really form a tightly knit friendship so much as a deeper understanding of themselves, and for others. All the while Payne offers up a lot of the same trademark cynical humor, and sharply delivered F bombs that will spark some raucous laughs.
Payne works wonderfully with Paul Giamatti who is one of the more unlikely protagonists who begins the movie as a stiff, often matter of fact professor prone to torturing his students with over abundance of work. But Giamatti’s quite humility, accompanied by his subtle exposition and peeks in to his life outside of the school allows us to root for him through the very end. Along with Giamatti there’s also the Oscar worthy turn by Da’Vine Joy Randolph who plays the school chef Mary. Mary is another of the stalwarts of the sixties left in the horrendous path of the Vietnam war, all the while spending every day looking for a reason to cope and move forward.
Joy Randolph is just enormous in her role; she especially shines in one scene during a Christmas party during drunken stupor that will just rip the hearts right out of the audience. “The Holdovers” is an appeal to understanding and empathy, it’s a heart felt and gut wrenching, albeit hilarious character study. It’s a gem that Payne is able to craft with brilliance quite often; I was so engaged with every Christmas tinted element of Payne’s period piece right through the very end.