Christmas Breakdown

Film: The Holdovers
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on rockin’ flatscreen.

As my current quarter winds down, I’ve decided I need to start hitting the Oscar movies from the latest year rather than just thinking about it. There are a bunch I still can’t find (yet), but it’s worth knocking a few out. There are a few I’m looking forward to, but I figured I would start with The Holdovers, only because I got a late start tonight and I didn’t have time for anything much longer. This is one I’ve been wanting to watch since it showed up on Peacock, and tonight I finally got the chance.

The Holdovers takes place at the end of 1970 in the environs of Barton Academy, a New England boarding school for the scions of wealthy families. As the year winds to a close, the school takes a two-week break and most of the students go home to family. Five students are left behind—there were supposed to be only four, but the fifth, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), gets a last minute call from his mother, who wants a proper honeymoon with her new husband. The teacher being left in charge is Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti). The only other person left at the school is Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s cook, who has just lost her son in Vietnam.

A few days into the winter break, one of the other holdovers has his father show up with a helicopter. Three of the others have their parents contacted, and all go off for a ski vacation. Angus’s mother cannot be reached, though, which leaves him stuck with Mr. Hunham, which is a fate worse than death for a teenaged kid. Hunham is a pedant and a vicious teacher, the sort of person who is the worst nightmare for the average kid. For the privileged sons of the wealthy, Hunham appears to be one of the few teachers who relishes holding them to account. In fact, he is stuck babysitting specifically because he refused to pass a senator’s son, who subsequently lost his acceptance to college. Hunham also has a medical condition that causes him to smell a bit like fish, has a lazy eye, and is at least a mild alcoholic.

What follows is exactly what you expect it’s going to be. It’s the same movie you’ve seen with any odd couple forced to spend time with each other, including The Odd Couple. This is much closer in many ways to films like Scent of a Woman, though, at least in terms of how the story works. Much of this is about a child of privilege whose life is not a bed of money and stock options that it might seem from the outside bonding with a teacher whom no one really likes, and who is the target of all of his students’ (and most of his colleagues’) vitriol. Naturally, the two build a sort of grudging respect for each other over the two weeks, culminating in a trip to Boston.

Any movie that takes place in a boarding school is going to call up a few comparisons. The immediate thought is something like Dead Poets Society or The Emperors Club, although in both cases, those stories are about a beloved teacher rather than the guy who everyone seems to hate. This is a much smaller movie in that regard, about this relationship as well as the connection the two of them make with Mary and her recent loss. All three of them are terribly lonely for different reasons, and all of them are looking for ways to deal with that loneliness.

There’s not a great deal of plot to The Holdovers, but there doesn’t really need to be. This is a character-driven movie, and all we really care about are Paul Hunham, Angus, and Mary and how they are going to get to the end of the film. The plot, such as it is, is more a series of events that connects the three of them and helps them understand each other and themselves a little better.

The casting is exquisite. Dominic Sessa debuts in this film, and he’s a natural on camera—he’s entirely believable as an angry kid who has gotten everything he’s ever wanted aside from the attention and approval of his parents. Paul Giamatti is always good, or almost always good in everything he does—this is the sort of role that is designed for him. There are similarities in a lot of ways to his character in Sideways as well as to Harvey Pekar from American Splendor. But it’s Da’Vine Joy Randolph who grounds the entire film. There is a sense early on that Angus and Paul don’t fight actively as a way to protect her—she is the emotional glue that holds them all together. Randolph kills this role.

The reality is that you have absolutely seen this movie before and you almost certainly won’t care about that. While the story cribs pretty hard from movies that are centered in this genre, it cribs from them in the right way. What a joy.

Why to watch The Holdovers: This is the right way to do a story you’ve seen before.
Why not to watch: As good as it is, you’ve seen this before.