For those who know me, I am perhaps one of the more jovial lovers of the Christmas season. I will fight the urge to start listening to Christmas music as soon as Halloween is in the rearview mirror. Perhaps it has been a little less jovial this year due to various reasons...but the love is still there.
When it comes to the Christmas season, you don't often see films based heavily around the holidays getting awards buzz. Over the years, movies like Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life got Best Picture nominations, but holiday films have never been what one would consider "prestige".
That makes The Holdovers feel particularly unique in some ways.
Set in December 1970, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is a snobbish and prickly history professor who is quite unpopular with both students and faculty alike. In fact, the school's headmaster, a man whom Hunham actually taught his first year in the position, loathes him for failing a student whose parents choose to stop donating money to the institution. That harsh grading system, along with his prickly attitude, are what make him very unpopular with his students.
That unpopularity, compounded by the fact that his life revolves around his job...a job at a school which, it must be said, he attended in his youth...is what leads him to be given the laborious task of being the guardian of various students who have nowhere to go for the holiday season.
Among the group of students is Angus Tully, played by Dominic Sessa in his debut film role, whose mother is choosing to spend time with the family of her new husband instead. Angus is one of 5 students...and he is something of an antagonist of the group...but as we learn in the first classroom scene, Angus seems to be smarter than all the other boys in the room.
Things take a turn when one of the father of one of the students decides on a whim to pick up his son via helicopter and offers to take him and the other students on a ski trip...but due to the aloof nature of Angus' mother and stepfather, Hunham can't reach them which leads Angus to be the only student remaining under his care...much to both his and to Angus' dismay.
Most of the film revolves around Giamatti, Sessa, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as the school's head cook Mary, who had taken the job years before to ensure her son Curtis' education, but we quickly learn that she is bereaved as Curtis was recently killed in Vietnam and her husband died several years before.
We have seen these kinds of films fairly often: a mismatched group of people who are forced to bond and realize that maybe they have more in common than they ever realized. When the film's premise starts to unravel, you almost think they may go for an all-male boarding school Breakfast Club situation but instead, it seems to take on a bit more of a genteel approach.
I read one review on Letterboxd that compared the style/aesthetic of the film to Hal Ashby, a director who isn't discussed as much nowadays but did make some truly good films throughout the 70s such as The Landlord, The Last Detail, Shampoo, and perhaps his two crown jewels: Harold & Maude and Being There.
I especially picked up on the aesthetics of Being There, with the old gothic architecture and snowy hilly landscapes...and that is actually what pulled me into the film pretty quickly as the film begins with a male chorus singing O Little Town of Bethlehem as we see the snowy, rustic landscape of the small rural town that the boarding school is in.
And even before that, the film does something that I feel is becoming more commonplace these days: making your film look less pristine.
By that, I mean that some filmmakers seem to be longing for everything to be less refined and glitzy when it comes to their work. In a way, it gives me hope that maybe we will see even more films try to tackle something like this.
In the case of The Holdovers, director Alexander Payne chose to make this film as if it were plucked from the 1970s. We've seen other films utilize "era appropriate" logo introductions (Argo comes to mind), but The Holdovers really goes for it with the Universal title card that had been used throughout the 70s and 80s and creating one for Focus Features and Miramax. I especially loved the old-fashioned MPAA rating card telling the audience that the film they were about to watch is rated R.
While Payne did shoot the film digitally, it was made to resemble the look of being shot on film...and the crackling sound at the beginning of the film to only further symbolize that instantly made me so happy.
I am someone who has repeatedly made the statement that the 1970s were the best decade for cinema, and I think watching The Holdovers made me realize how much the 70s aesthetic plays into that love as well.
But a film should be more than aesthetics.
I don't need to tell you that film is a visual medium, but a gorgeous film to look it is mostly nothing if it doesn't have anything else to pull you in.
Luckily, The Holdovers pretty much succeeded in that.
If I would say anything negative about the film, it might be that some of its meandering nature probably could've been a sign that some trims could've been made in the editing room. Films like this should most definitely exist, but they are also a tightrope walk on making sure they don't fall on the side of slow/dull.
The Holdovers was never dull necessarily, but it might've benefitted from a little bit of tightening in terms of the pacing...but there is obviously a lot to like and enjoy here beyond just the fact that I absolutely adored the look of the film.
Paul Giamatti gives one of his best performances here. It was written with him in mind and quite frankly, he excels here. This role does fall more into the subtle category, but he does get a couple of quick big moments. It is a role that plays well into prickly neuroses that Giamatti has often cultivated in his work over the years. While I wouldn't predict it at this time, I could see a scenario pan out where he becomes a dark horse contender to actually win the Oscar. At this moment, it seems like the tide is moving towards Bradley Cooper and Cillian Murphy, but I do think we will finally see Giamatti as a Lead Actor nominee, something he was robbed from nearly 20 years ago for Sideways.
Da'Vine Joy Randolph's Mary is one of those characters that could've easily become a caricature: the sassy black woman with a heart of gold. That isn't to say she doesn't have moments of sass...and she most definitely has a heart of gold, but there is something just so REAL about her. This is a woman who is grieving the loss of her son Curtis after having lost her husband tragically before Curtis was even born. She comes to work, does her job, faces many cruel and snide remarks from the privileged students that she isn't a great cook because she is too busy crying...but she's there...and in fact, part of the reason why she is staying at the job made me admire her more. I won't spoil it, but I found her journey with this particular storyline to be rather touching and admirable.
Randolph came onto my radar over a decade ago as perhaps the only decent thing about the dreadful stage musical adaptation of GHOST, where she took on Oda Mae Brown, the role that netted Whoopi Goldberg an Oscar. It is looking like The Holdovers might very well do the same for Randolph.
The Supporting Actress category is not in the best of shape this year, and while I am not necessarily sure Randolph gives an undeniable performance, I think Randolph would make for a solid winner. She does give the role a lot of gravitas and she does command the screen.
Then we have Dominic Sessa, who recently just turned 21 and as I mentioned earlier, this is his film debut. Having been a hockey player at Deerfield Academy, a prep school much like Barton, he suffered a leg injury and while recovering, he decided to audition for some plays and was deemed a natural. Casting Director Susan Shopmaker showed up at Deerfield looking for young men who could potentially play Angus Tully and, on a whim, Sessa decided to audition. Payne was intrigued, but it was Giamatti who was drawn to him. Giamatti stated in a recent interview that he found Sessa to be "so magnetic" and that his face felt very much like it was a face of the 70s. There is sort of a strange truth to that and it isn't just a random new observation. There are just some people who look like they belonged in the 70s whereas there are people today who just don't have the face to pass as someone who might've been a Victorian housewife.
Sessa is given the difficult task of playing a rather unlikable character...just like Giamatti as well...but I was actually amazed at how much I saw that hidden pain within Angus. Maybe that is also partially the predictability of the film right from the get-go, but regardless of that, Sessa conveys so much, and I would go as far to say that his look and energy are very much unique...and it'll be curious to see how his career evolves. As of now, he is currently still a student at Carnegie Mellon.
Lastly, I want to talk a little more about Alexander Payne and the script which was written by David Hemingson.
Usually Payne is known for writing/co-writing his films, which is why I was surprised to learn that wasn't the case here. This is Hemingson's first screenplay after having worked in television for nearly 30 years...and yes, while certain beats in the story may be a tad predictable, he does do lovely work here with great dialogue and the character dynamics are an absolute joy to watch.
Payne's commitment to keeping the 70s style alive is also very commendable, because this film undoubtedly has that indie Payne feel but that also makes sense as to why the setting/style works so well. Even if you look at earlier works of Payne's like Sideways or Election, they were both extremely well done but also relatively deceptive in their indie style. Payne is a lot like Noah Baumbach in that he is a part of a group of filmmakers who feel both timeless and also trapped in a specific time in their approach. I feel like maybe I am not making sense with that, but I mean it as a compliment.
I will be curious to see how I evolve on this film over time. Even writing this review, I was waffling on my rating a little bit. A lot of that waffling does stem from a certain predictability and the sluggish pacing at times...but then I got won over by the moments where the film hits all the marks. The acting, the dialogue, the warm and cozy visuals.
Payne has also made comments in interviews that he doesn't see The Holdovers as a warm or cozy film...and while I see where he is coming from, I also think this is a prime example of how what a filmmaker may think of their vision is not what critics and audiences will share in their assessments.
I am actually going to be upgrading my rating system beginning with this film. I do think the 5-star rating system is solid, but I have come to notice that certain films that it becomes a little harder to divide some films up between ratings.
I wasn't going to rank The Holdovers as a 5-star film, but I feel weird ranking it with a 4.5 or even a 4.
I will say that I will gladly revisit this film and I think it deserves to be placed in the pantheon of classic Christmas films. It certainly provides a new fresh and, perhaps, more adult take than most so it does have that going for it.
My final ranking for The Holdovers on my new 10-point scale is:
RATING. 8.5/10
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