"The Holdovers" are Good Company

The film does a fantastic job transporting you back to the early 70s and making you root for its trio of sad people

The Holdovers is playing on Peacock

Grade: B (Cinematically, it’s an A+. Payne takes you back in time and to quote

Rebecca Cyr

, you feel like you’re watching a film from the 70s and not a film which is supposed to take place in the 70s. The story is engaging, but slow going. Giamatti’s character’s backstory reveal underwhelmed.)

The term “the holdover(s)” refers to boarding school kids who stay at school during holiday break. In the film, it’s Winter break period through Christmas and New Years.

Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election, Nebraska, Downsizing) directs. David Hemingson wrote the screenplay.

When I think of Alexander Payne, director of The Holdovers (2023), a film which has now earned itself Best Actor titles for all three of its leads between the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards in the past week, the movie Sideways (2003) comes to mind almost immediately.

Angry Man Motif

It’s a similar motif featuring a disgruntled, middle aged cerebral, learned man (Giamatti) coming to terms with his life. He’s knowledgeable about a particular topic like wine (Sideways) or ancient Greece/civilizations (The Holdovers) to an almost encyclopedic level that no one can relate to, but that doesn’t stop him from droning on about it. He’s battling inner demons that threaten to take hold and suffocate him, making him an angry passive voyager in his life story. In Payne’s narrative with a Giamatti character, this anger stews and brews and eventually outs itself leading to some sort of climactic moment.

From that all is lost moment, self-awareness emerges and an opportunity is afforded to our protagonist to demonstrate his growth and transformation. Payne’s muse does something heroic (translation: other-focused) and elevates himself from the “dude everyone hates” to a more fulfilled, less angry person. He also talks less about his interests. This might all be a coincidence but I think it’s part of the appeal.

Giamatti is for Payne what Cillian Murphy is for director Christoper Nolan and Leonard Dicaprio for Martin Scorsese. They are director’s darlings - a heap of clay on a potter’s wheel ready to be spun and molded into works of art. And, each pairing having worked together for so long, they intimately know how this form will take shape so they can erect all sorts of sophisticated sculptures. You get where I’m going with this analogy.

(L-to-R clockwise) Dicaprio in “Killers of The Flower Moon,” “Cillian Murphy in “Oppenheimer” and Paul Giamatti in “The Holdovers”

The “No Man is an Island” Theme

In Sideways, Giamatti’s Mile’s doom and gloom mindset is complemented by the light-hearted, affable playboy best friend, Jack (Thomas Hayden Church). Jack’s undeniably self-centered, egocentric and makes questionable life decisions, but he’s also fun and takes the edge off of Mile’s heavy hearted, Eeyore just a little. He opens Miles up to the possibility of a life better lived. And I think we can all agree we’d rather be stuck in an elevator with Jack than Miles. We’d laugh a whole lot more.

Miles:

Jack:

Similarly, in The Holdovers, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), an unpopular New England prep school teacher of history, is flanked by a supportive, more redeeming duo played by prep school “holdover” Angus (Dominic Sessa) and a cook at the school, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who enable him to be that better person. Like Paul, their characters are similarly down-on-their-luck and their dispositions are definitely not of a “Tigger” variety, but they lean more to the positive, life-affirming, even with the grueling tests that life has thrown at them.

The story does a good job with rounding out Mary and Angus’s characters. It’s not all Paul all the time and for that, viewer, be thankful.

Mary Lamb is in pain, grieving the loss of her college-aged son, who died in Vietnam and once attended the same prep school, the fictional Barton, with all the rich kids (socio-economic differences are a point in the film) and had a promising future. Unfortunately, Mary’s son didn’t get the “draft dodge” card like the other kids who went onto expensive colleges. Inferences are made that Mary, a single mom, sacrificed for her son and that he was an impressive man, which makes the loss all the more unbearable for her.

While Paul lacks compassion for anyone else in the privileged school, he has profound compassion for Mary, often standing up for her in front of the kids, so the fact that their friendship grows during the Winter break period is not surprising.

Angus, the prep school kid character, has been kicked out of a number of boarding schools and is very much grieving in his own right. His dad, once mentally healthy, is now locked away in a facility, as his anger turned violent. Angus’s mom has remarried and goes away with her new and improved husband (Tate Donovan) over the break, leaving him behind. Angus, is a sympathetic kid and smart. He’s also afraid of his next stop being a military school and being sent off to Vietnam. He knows he’s on borrowed time.

Paul is not a fan of Angus at first, but with time and their ability to see one another more clearly, beyond the superficial, a father-son type dynamic develops and it’s heartwarming, really. It’s the part of the film that worked best for me. Paul’s icy cold, abrasiveness softens a bit with every interaction with Angus and with Mary. The chemistry shared by these three actors and characters is what makes this film shine.

Payne’s Payne-ful Approach to Romance & His Women

Payne demands of his viewers that they suspend all grasp of reality to believe that very attractive, smart, and generous women fall for the less attractive, emotionally stunted male lead. This is a reoccurring theme in both Sideways where Virginia Madsen’s alluring waitress Maya falls for Miles, rightfully breaks things off with him, but then sends a letter to him hinting at a reconciliation because his manuscript meant that much to her. Reading between the lines, she wants to know him even more intimately because he’s worthy. His mind turns her on. It moves her deeply.

It’s a Woody Allen/Larry David wet dream.

I’m not shunning the evolution story here entirely. Just that the woman needs to be Virginia Madsen to achieve said effect and look like she’s listening intently to endless tales of wine because he’s all that.

Taking a page from Miles’ manuscript, in The Holdovers, we have Paul’s crush on the kind and vibrant headmaster secretary, Lydia Crane (Carrie Preston), yet again a waitress love interest, who lifts Paul’s spirits only to have all hopes dashed when he sees she has a boyfriend. After this, save one scene, she’s written out of the story, seemingly because she lacks a purpose or as penance for her shamefully daring to date an attractive and emotionally available male companion. She’s not serving Payne’s male lead and listening intently to Greek tragedies. In fairness, she’s not one of the three main leads, but still, it’s clear what Payne is painting here and it’s not a narrative I’m loving.

Waltham, MA Makes a Cameo

On a personal note, The Holdovers, like parts of season 1 of Julia, was filmed in my town. And not just in our town, but at a very specific Italian restaurant that was a staple of my kids’ lives as toddlers and young elementary school kiddos. They loved The Chateau. Perhaps this was noteworthy enough to lead the review with, but at the very least it’s a treat for those who made it this far in.

For movie watchers, it was the setting for the Boston restaurant where Mary, Angus and Paul meet up and where the server refused to serve Angus a dessert with alcohol and they all treated her with disdain.

Other Films or Shows About Prickly Professors (who are made better by the women in their lives)

BEVP’s DON’T WATCH List

Skip Mean Girls now out in theaters. It’s a musical which is both good and bad in that Renee Rapp’s vocals can save almost any story but unfortunately even they can’t salvage the plot.

The only funny parts in the film are the scenes with high school staff Jon Hamm, Tina Fey and Tim Meadows. The latter two reprise their roles from the original film with Lindsay Logan (2004). Ok, boomer.

The highlight is Broadway star and singing sensation Renee Rapp in the role of Regina George. She takes her “umph” to a signature place and it’s fun.

Solely for Rapp though, you can watch her in Sex Lives of College Girls on Max. And listen to her on Spotify.

Skip Self-Reliance on Hulu. It’s a film from 2021 with actor/filmmaker Jake Johnson (Jess’s love interest in New Girl) and Anna Kendrick, among other greats.

If my ability to stay awake on a Friday evening is a barometer, I fell asleep 40% of the way in and woke up at 70% of the way in and still didn’t miss too much. And more to the point, I didn’t really care enough to badger my husband about what I missed. That speaks volumes.