As January comes to a close, let’s take care of Christmas leftovers with, well, The Holdovers. From Alexander Payne comes a film that came out relatively recently where I am, but caught my eye enough for me to take a gander one evening—time to see how well it holds up as far as brightening up lingering dark winter evenings go.
Set in 1970 New England, our focus is on cranky but sharp-tongued classic teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), essentially married to his job at a preppy exclusive boarding school. Despite his abrasiveness, Paul is at least genuinely committed to his teaching—something that ends him in trouble when he fails a student from a senatorial family, leading him to be the one to hang around the school teaching a handful of students that range from more snobs to a troubled youth by the name of Angus (Dominic Tessa). As snow blankets the landscapes and everyone chafes under lowering temperatures and ongoing curricula, it comes down to how everyone changes over this one Christmas holiday.
Giamatti is of course the immediate highlight—making a character type that’s not hugely groundbreaking still work, as stuck as he is with his quotations from long-dead Romans and Greeks. An ass he may be, but he’s an ass stuck with brats coasting on connections, with equally uncaring faculty, and all of this on top of the opening of a turbulent decade for America—as he puts it, ‘nothing makes sense anymore’ and ‘the world’s bitter and complicated’ (the more things change, and all that…) Between that relatability and some quick-witted charisma, you can actually find yourself rooting him for in an odd way.
Tessa’s younger character is someone who’s more a troubled teen, and while there’s certainly reasons for his character to be like that as we find, being able to root for him in turn comes a bit later in the show for my liking. I suppose that’s the idea—that both ultimately work through their own respective issues, and there’s certainly a decent effort at it, that maybe doesn’t quite make it to 100% for me.
The secondary cast mostly comes from school cook Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who did prove more interesting in her own right for someone who at first seems like a more cursory background character, however. From something almost like a breakdown at a Christmas party, there’s certainly a better sense of old traumas being worked out with her, and the one even to more directly try to help Paul out of his shell.
Earlier on we have a collection of other students who are eventually wheeled out of the film as soon as it feels like they become a bit more redundant—one or two of them feel interesting in their own way, the stereotypical preppy kid aside, which feels a shame. Then again, the story perhaps works best focused on our above trio, but it still felt slightly jarring to watch.
Still, while it doesn’t necessarily trailblazer new ground, The Holdovers I found to be fine overall, competently held along by its leads. The commitment to the early seventies atmosphere, from period-accurate opening titles and even rating cards, I found admirable—even most of the cinematography is executed more or less the way it would’ve been back then, with no sweeping drone shots or complex crane work. And the ultimate arc for Paul himself, of ultimately having to confront himself and question the box he’s made for himself out of his job and his Marcus Aurelius quotes, is one that’s probably gonna be compelling enough for most viewers.
All in all—maybe not quite award sweeping for me, but at the same time, there’s enough in Holdovers I found for it not be left buried with the Christmas tree out back.
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