The Holdovers (2023) | REVIEW

Directed by Alexander Payne — Screenplay by David Hemingson.

At least up until now, American filmmaker Alexander Payne reached his current awards-wise zenith with his 2004 effort Sideways (also starring Paul Giamatti), which earned Payne an Oscar, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe award. His positive trend continued with his 2011 and 2013 efforts The Descendants and Nebraska with both being critically acclaimed and the former earning him his second Oscar. That is, however, when he reached his creative nadir as a director with 2017’s Downsizing (starring Matt Damon), which contained an inventive premise about shrinking yourself as a means to combat problems related to overpopulation and global warming. Downsizing was, at best, a mixed bag, and, at worst, a disastrous mess. Despite its strong cast and a fantastic premise, Payne was unable to pull it all together for arguably his most ambitious flick. It makes me happy to be able to report that the latest film in his oeuvre, The Holdovers, is an incredibly charming return to form for the filmmaker in large part thanks to David Hemingson’s sharp writing and the loving performances of three principal cast members.

Set in late 1970, Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers follows a misanthropic and unpopular classics professor, Paul Hunham (played by Paul Giamatti), at the New England-based boarding school known as Barton Academy. The classics professor is harsh on his students and doesn’t let anyone fly under his radar or get through his classes unscathed. When he hands out grades, he does it without considering the feelings of the students or their wealthy parents who may have otherwise considered being an important donor to the academy. Because of his lack of popularity both in class, with parents, and with the faculty, the professor is saddled with the unwanted role of having to supervise the so-called ‘holdover’ students who won’t be going away from campus during the end-of-the-year holidays. 

One of these holdovers is Angus Tully (played by Dominic Sessa), whose mother cancelled their family trip without warning as she’d rather go on honeymoon with her new husband and strand Tully by his lonesome with the teacher he can’t stand. In addition to holdover students and the classics professor — all of whom feel uniquely unwanted during the holidays — cafeteria administrator Mary Lamb (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who lost her son in the Vietnam War, is also staying behind. Although Hunham initially has no problem demanding intense studying from the students during his supervision of their winter break, Hunham’s tune changes once he gets to know Tully in large part thanks to Mary’s appeals. 

The Holdovers is the kind of warm blanket of a film that is somehow specifically crafted in such a way as to echo films of a certain era but that also feels incredibly timeless. At the same time, this feels like a type of film that ‘they’ don’t exactly make all that often anymore. It is an affecting holiday dramedy that doesn’t just belong in the Christmas viewing rotation but is also one of the better teacher films in quite some time. As a film it nails the verisimilitude of its teenage dialogue and rapport at the boarding school, and, in that regard, it reminded me a little bit of Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! in moments, albeit with a vastly different premise, setting, focus, and group of characters. Furthermore, it also feels very much like there is a link between this and Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society, though with a far different type of teacher, but also John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club.

It is a film about a makeshift family of people connected by shared feelings of being left behind, feeling lonely, and missing someone special. Of course, the whole idea that this film takes very different characters whose approach to each other changes gradually through shared experiences that bring them closer together isn’t novel or fresh by any means. Nevertheless, the film is incredibly charming, warm, and perfectly cozy. The Holdovers is a wonderful film about togetherness in the face of winter depression and harsh realities with stellar acting from Sessa, Randolph, and Giamatti.

Dominic Sessa, in his first film role, is a wonderful surprise here, as he captures an energy befitting the kind of film this is, Da’Vine Joy Randolph delivers subtle but quietly moving work here as the grief-stricken woman who sometimes acts as the conscience of the film’s lead, Paul Giamatti, who offers both explosive, stern, satirical, and affectingly soft work through this arguably career-best performance. The dialogue and character-writing is so exceptionally done that you will probably recognize these characters from your own life (we’ve all encountered hard-ass but well-meaning teachers like that), and you’ll probably see yourself in them as well — these are written in such a way that they always feel like fully-formed human beings. This is arguably the crowd-pleasing family film of 2023, and I feel confident in saying that this will be cherished for years to come.

8.5 out of 10

– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.