{"id":21038,"date":"2023-10-26T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=21038"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:15:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:15:56","slug":"review-the-holdovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-the-holdovers\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Holdovers<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s no exaggeration to say that the first thing Alexander Payne wants you to know about his new film The Holdovers<\/em> is that it\u2019s set in the 1970s\u2014and I do mean the first thing<\/em>, since he opens the movie with specific throwback ephemera of that era, one of those old full-screen ratings designations, followed by period-appropriate riffs on the production company logos. Other filmmakers, from Fincher to Soderbergh to Tarantino, have done this sort of thing before, of course, but Payne is going for something beyond mere nostalgia, or winks to his fellow film nerds. He\u2019s not just setting his movie in 1970; he\u2019s making a genuine effort (in the cinematography, transitions, sound, credits, etc.) to make it look like it was made<\/em> then as well, like it\u2019s some lost, forgotten classic of the era. And, to his credit, he mostly succeeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Payne is not credited on the script\u2014that goes solely to David Hemingson\u2014and it\u2019s his first feature since the unfortunate Downsized. <\/em>Maybe it\u2019s just a coincidence that, at this perhaps tenuous juncture in his filmmaking career, he\u2019s reconnected with the star of his most acclaimed film, Sideways, <\/em>or maybe he was looking for a good luck charm. Whatever the case, it\u2019s good to see them together again, as Paul Giamatti seems a uniquely ideal vessel for Payne\u2019s notions of the woes of the intelligentsia, and Payne seems to bring out the nuances of Giamatti\u2019s now-established persona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stars as Paul Hunham, instructor of Ancient Civilizations at Massachusetts\u2019 prestigious Barton Academy. Paul is an antisocial alcoholic who loathes his students, dressing them down with deliciously ornate insults; he can also barely tolerate his headmaster, and the feeling is mutual. He\u2019s been given the unenviable job of babysitting five \u201choldover boys\u201d during Christmas break\u2014students who cannot, for one reason or another, go home for the holidays. \u201cAt least pretend to be a human being,\u201d he\u2019s instructed. \u201cPlease. It\u2019s Christmas.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul is not the only remaining faculty. There is also Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, getting her first juicy role since Dolemite is My Name<\/em>), <\/em>the manager of the school cafeteria, who is spending her first Christmas without her son. He just died in Vietnam, so she\u2019s very much still in mourning, bitter but resigned \u2014 and even she <\/em>thinks Paul needs to lighten up. \u201cIt\u2019s the holidays,\u201d she insists. \u201cGo easy on \u2018em.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve had it easy their whole lives,\u201d he retorts, a statement that makes more sense the more we find out about him. A last-minute hail mary (mostly from a narrative perspective \u2014 this turn of events does not really hold water) leaves Paul with just one holdover: Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a bright kid but a pain in the ass, whose mother has abandoned him over the holidays for a honeymoon with his new stepfather. \u201cWell,\u201d Paul shrugs, \u201clet\u2019s make the best of it, shall we?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so they do. \u201cThe Holdovers\u201d is a modest, intimate character study, and exists mostly as a showcase for the gift that is Paul Giamatti\u2014specifically, the gift that is Paul Giamatti in close-up. He has two here that linger: one uproariously funny, as we cut away to his reaction when (long story) the doctor has to relocate Tully\u2019s shoulder, and one tragic, as he walks away from the headmaster\u2019s office at the end of the movie. This is a guy who\u2019s been acting in movies, quite memorably, for going on a quarter-century now, and one can safely say he has grown quite attuned to how to best use his instrument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s not the entire show here, of course; Sessa, a new actor, does quite well with a role that could be played (and, occasionally, must be) as an insufferable shit, while Randolph nails her character\u2019s earthy humor, raw pain, and quiet dignity with equal precision. And the wonderful character actor Carrie Preston, who you\u2019ll recognize from a million things,  gets a lovely little showcase role as \u201cMiss Lydia Crane,\u201d who seems like a joke at first, and proves to be anything but.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander Payne has kinda been making Hal Ashby movies his entire career, but this is his most concerted effort to do so; it\u2019s shaggy and shambling in its approach and execution (and running time), as well as its sometimes-too-obvious musical choices (when \u201cThe Wind\u201d by Cat Stevens drops, it feels all but preordained). Hemingson\u2019s script doesn\u2019t always shoot straight\u2014 it smoothly sidesteps some the potentially less endearing unlikable qualities of a guy like this in this particular time, and the closest it gets to the potent politics of \u201970 is Paul\u2019s vague comment that \u201cThe world doesn\u2019t make sense anymore. It\u2019s on fire.\u201d And in his commitment to the bit, Payne ends up calling up some devices and turns that are a little musty (the undiscussed secrets and big speeches about them, specifically). But none of this derails what is easily one of Payne\u2019s best films. Hell of a lot better than Downsizing<\/em>, certainly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Holdovers” is in theaters Friday,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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