The Holdovers (Payne, 2023): Prince Charles Cinema, 5.15pm
This great modern Christmas film is part of the Christmas season at the Prince Charles Cinema and is also being screened on December 5th. Full details here.
Time Out review:
Loneliness, Vietnam-era alienation and a sourpuss Paul Giamatti
aren’t, on paper, the things of which cockle-warming yuletide classics
are typically made – any more than teams of hi-tech thieves sticking up
Japanese corporations. But like Die Hard,
Alexander Payne’s wintry story of human connection is an unexpected
Christmas gem. It even plays a tiny bit like a 1970-set version of ‘A
Christmas Carol’, with Giamatti’s cranky ancient history teacher
learning uncomfortable truths about himself in a redemption arc that
gives the film a genuine glow. Payne’s old Sideways star
is, as ever, a curmudgeonly delight as Paul Hunham, a universally
unpopular member of the teaching staff at New England’s Barton Academy.
In fact, his outsider status at the prep school is such that he’s given
up trying to charm his students or colleagues, instead embracing his own
pain-in-the-arse misanthropy, self-parody (he’s always ready with an
Aeneas reference) and self-limiting horizons. ‘You can’t even dream a
whole dream, can you?’ chides a colleague. So when someone is needed to babysit a handful of ‘holdovers’ over
the holidays, pupils whose parents have more or less abandoned them
during Christmas, it’s Paul who is stuck with the job. Spending the festive period
with the gawky, sharp-tongued and inwardly raging Tully (Dominic
Sessa), a young man abandoned by his mum and grieving his dad,
immediately feels like hell for all concerned. What follows is a coming-of-age story for Tully and Paul, and a
reminder that the sure-to-be-awards-bound Giamatti deserves to be top
of the bill far more often, instead of being lumbered with supporting
roles in so-so blockbusters like Jungle Cruise and San Andreas. Few other actors could inhabit this rumpled, embittered man and make you root for him so wholeheartedly. The Holdovers is a triumphant comeback story for Alexander Payne, too. The director bounces back from 2017’s misfiring Downsizing
to find his tone – a rare kind of jaded hopefulness – with all his old
assurance. He adds another string to his bow here in spotting the
talented Sessa. The newcomer is Giamatti’s equal in a volatile
odd-couple dynamic that ebbs and flows before the pair finally begin to
understand each other. Props, too, to Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Only Murders in the Building),
who hits all the film’s major keys as the school’s bubbly but blunt
cook, and some of the most touching minor ones, too. The death of her
son in Vietnam haunts The Holdovers as
much as that of Tully’s dad. All three characters are nursing broken
hearts but their path to solidarity is never straightforward or
predictable. David Hemingson’s screenplay makes every moment of
reluctant connection feel earned. And I loved that The Holdovers isn’t
just set in the 1970s; it feels like it was made then too. From the
desaturated cinematography, captured with vintage lenses, to the
lived-in production design, you could be watching a Hal Ashby movie (the
film’s trailer even has an old-school voiceover). It’s a bittersweet
callback to a golden age when there were a whole lot more movies like
this one.
Phil De Semlyen
Here (and above) is the trailer.
