The Holdovers (2023) - Alexander Payne’s 70s-inspired dramedy is a frosty masterpiece
Credit: allocine.fr
Paul Giamatti shines with boorish glee in Alexander Payne’s latest comedy-drama The Holdovers, a tale of forgotten souls that is as poignant as it is humorous. During the winter of 1970, five boys are left behind at a New England school over the Christmas holidays. Their supervisor is the curmudgeonly Ancient History teacher Paul Hunham (Giamatti), who hasn’t left the campus in years and who, unloved and reviled by faculty and students alike, lives up to his word by instigating a strict routine of work and occasional unfriendly jabs. Polishing off this unlikely team is the school’s head chef Mary (a fantastically expressive Da’Vine Joy Randolph in her first Oscar and Bafta win), whose Christmas is shadowed by the death of her only son in Vietnam and the unwitting privilege of those boys she must take care of who have been spared from his tragic fate. But it becomes apparent that all isn’t quite well with them either: when four are, by miracle, released from the label “holdover”, Mary and Paul find themselves sole carers of the one remaining, sullen and troubled Angus Sully (a superb Dominic Sessa), who is determined to cut his stay at school over Christmas short. Huddled together against their will, Paul, Angus and Mary navigate the ups and downs of the festive period collectively and separately, each coming to reflect and rely on each other in a tale expertly balancing delightful humanity and heart-wrenching loss.
There is not one foot stepped out of line in The Holdovers’ performances, though it is certainly Giamatti who takes the lead throughout, displaying a range of emotion unlike anything I have seen in a while: from jibe, to surprising kindness, back to rage and uncommon insensitivity, he plays Hunham with the ability at all times to remind us that behind the quick wit and unconcern is in fact a good dose of heavy regret. This is not to say that his fellow holdovers do not measure up to him. On the contrary, Randolph’s performance as a grieving mother is as no-nonsense as it is moving, while Sessa positively radiates wicked energy in his first film role, riling Giamatti’s Hunham up with nothing but a malicious look in the eye. In the end however, it is in the characters’ weaknesses that the three are strongest, beautifully emblematised by a scene at the halfway point in which Mary violently snaps out of her grief when Hunham tells Angus no one wants him at Christmas. It is in this strikingly moving instance that, all at once, all three are laid bare, and that their healing can begin.
Credit: allocine.fr
Payne wonderfully creates a nostalgia of nostalgia, a quality of feeling not only set in, but made in the 70s. A blur of wintry colours and school grounds, coupled with a involuntary look into the psyche, is reminiscent of The Breakfast Club – had their detention lasted three weeks, and their principal been forced to sit in on it. Just like Bender and co., Hunham and Angus start to soften as they get to know each other, opening up to harsher topics that go beyond misanthropic dislike for each other. What is particularly refreshing about The Holdovers is that at no point does it try to make the festive period saccharine – like for many others, Christmas comes, on the contrary, as a reminder of misfortune, loss and abandonment. This is no doubt why moments of tenderness are this much more powerful when they do arise, in the form of a simple turkey meal or misshapen Christmas tree. Nevertheless, The Holdovers never loses its sense of humour – there is something fantastically liberating about Hunham and Angus’ initial hate, and their ability to be so deliciously awful to each other. At all times, they seem able to push the exact buttons to make the other keel over – a testimony, no doubt, to the mutual understanding and shared struggles that make The Holdovers so breathtakingly human.