I went to one year of high school in the US (fancy New England Prep School, in this case) and four years of university. I was only homesick once, and it was only for a few minutes. It was my sophomore (second) year at university in the depth of winter.
All the students leave for Christmas except some athletes who have to stay and play over the winter break. It is cold and lonely, and because you have no classes, the coaches just work you to the bone, so you are exhausted.
Whale Rider had just come out, and a friend from back in Kiwiland told me I should check it out. Well, it broke me, and I was a crying, sobbing mess. The exhaustion, cold, isolation, and then hearing the accent again, it was all too much.
Even with all that I didn’t care about what the characters at the beginning of The Holdovers (dir Alexander Payne) were going through. It is 1970 and Angus (Dominic Sessa) a smart-arse kid at a fancy New England Prep school (I met a few of them so I know the type) acts all cool until he is on the phone with his mother who says he can’t come home for Christmas and turns into a whiney brat because he wants to be anywhere but here.
The always-great Paul Giamatti plays the cantankerous teacher Paul Hunham, who sees himself as a paragon of virtue. He must uphold the traditions of Barton Academy and be so rigorous in his standards that he damages the boys’ futures because Barton Men don’t lie.
It is the second film between Payne and Giamatti, who worked together on the wonderful Sideways.
The film moves forward with a colourful cast of characters, especially the school cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) both pushing Angus and Hunham’s points of view. The film investigates integrity, honour, fairness and most of all the personal cost of having values.
It was shot in the style of 70’s films with grainy film stock and mainly in New England, which Payne described as making the 70 aesthetic easier to show because “change comes slowly to New England”.
The Holdovers did feel a little formulaic but it had enough genuine moments and interesting reveals that it keeps your interest and most of all it sticks the landing to put a smile on your face at the end.
Ultimately, it is about people who don’t want to be with each other learning about the humanity and struggles the others are going through. It shows us that we just want to feel wanted, that people want us there rather than putting up with us out of obligation, call me crazy but we even want to feel loved.
12 December 2023
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe