The Holdovers
Alexander Payne returns to the top of his form with his understated comedy-drama set in a 1970s’ New England boarding school over Christmas.
Dominic Sessa and Oscar-nominee Paul Giamatti
Courtesy of Focus Features
In 1961 Peter Sellers seized the chance to direct himself in one of his less well-known films, Mr Topaze. His role was that of a schoolteacher and it was a surprising choice being a fresh version of a play by Marcel Pagnol which Pagnol himself had filmed with Fernandel in 1951. Equally unexpected is the fact that this latest film from the American director Alexander Payne, also a film about a teacher, again derives from a Pagnol work. In this instance it is the obscure 1935 offering Merlusse. But, whatever its origins and despite the fact that Payne for once does not also have a writing credit, The Holdovers emerges as every inch an Alexander Payne film. The screenplay is by David Hemingson who comes from television but it would seem that on those rare occasions when Payne does not have a hand in the writing of his films he has the gift of finding somebody perfectly in accord (the other example is 2013’s Nebraska written by Bob Nelson).
Payne has acknowledged the film’s indebtedness to Merlusse but it is a British classic, Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version, which, being so much better known, provides a fascinating source of comparison here (I have in mind Anthony Asquith’s 1951 film rather than the 1994 remake). The central figure in The Holdovers is Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) who teaches ancient history at Barton Academy, a boarding school not far from Boston. Like Michael Redgrave’s Crocker-Harris in the Asquith film, he is a pedantic, seemingly unfeeling man with a vituperative manner that leads to him being feared by his pupils and who is regarded by the other teachers as something of an old fossil. But in each case the writing is such that we see beyond the unprepossessing exterior and recognise the disappointment in life that has marked him and led to disillusionment in a changing world. In The Holdovers this is happening in 1970 in an America impacted by the Vietnam war and in which the young are defying the traditional attitudes which have shaped Hunham’s views: his sharp tongue is the protection of a vulnerable man who recognises that he is out of tune with the times and cannot come to terms with that fact.
In The Browning Version we see the influence on Crocker-Harris of one pupil who feels more sympathetic to him and, in time, that is echoed in The Holdovers by the bond that grows between Hunham and Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a teenager left in his charge over the Christmas holidays. Initially Angus is not the only boy staying on at the school on account of having no home to go to during the vacation, but the others unexpectedly get an opportunity to leave and thus for most of the time, with the solitary exception of a cleaner (Naheem Garcia), the school building is occupied only by Hunham, Angus Tully and the head cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). While the portrait of Paul Hunham is the film’s central focus, Hemingson’s screenplay, in contrast to Rattigan’s work, seeks to expand the theme of vulnerable and troubled human beings. The most upfront instance is to be found in the case of Mary because her son has just died in Vietnam at the age of nineteen. We learn that as an impoverished black woman she had become a cook to help earn enough to get her son into Barton Academy, that being needed on top of the scholarship that he had won. Left on her own now, she is coping with this loss at a time when her sister (Juanita Pearl) is pregnant and looking to the future. As for Angus, he is a difficult youth who has been expelled from other schools and initially he looks set to be another thorn in Paul Hunham's side. However, we soon realise that Angus is damaged by no longer having a father to whom he can turn and by the fact that his mother (Gillian Vigman) has remarried and has unfeelingly made excuses not to have him home for Christmas.
As the days pass the three central characters start to influence each other and the fates that await Paul and Angus are interrelated. Despite the parallels with The Browning Version, I should stress that, while Rattigan remains the most English of authors, Hemingson and Payne give us a work that is quintessentially American. Equally important is the fact that, whereas Rattigan wrote a tragic drama, The Holdovers is one of those pieces categorised on IMDb as “comedy/drama". Often that can mean a work that shifts uneasily between the two modes, but Payne, quite as much here as in the justly famous Sideways (2004), is a master of combining the two. The key to his success in that respect lies in his sympathy for his characters who, for all the humorous touches present in the dialogue, come across as real people. Paul Giamatti, until now best remembered for Sideways, is the perfect example of an actor who can balance this by making Paul Hunham utterly real while also delighting us with the delivery of lines abundant in subtle humour. It is a great performance. But, as has been pointed out, this is no one-man show: newcomer Dominic Sessa handles his major role with remarkable assurance while Da’Vine Joy Randolph, ideally cast as Mary, fully deserves awards too (that they would be as Best Supporting Actress underlines the fact that hers is the shortest of the three main roles which, a bit sad though it is, is nonetheless what this particular story requires).
At 133 minutes The Holdovers is a long film but it has its own unhurried pace which feels right and almost everything about it demonstrates what one looks for in an Alexander Payne film. Nothing about the movie is flashy, the dialogue takes one back to an age when quality writing was a notable feature of much Hollywood filmmaking (think Joseph L. Mankiewicz) and subtlety abounds. Note, for example, how that last quality is illustrated by the way in which the Christmas season is represented by so many related songs on the soundtrack but without them ever becoming overbearing. Another example lies in the way in which the film’s clear critical attitude to this school establishment favoured by the wealthy does not allow any of the characters to become caricatures. Indeed, subtlety plays such a part in The Holdovers, including its ability to sidestep the sentimentality that might have overtaken it, that I do find the resolution of the story a shade contrived by contrast with what has gone before even if it remains acceptable. To all those who admire Payne's work this is a film that can be confidently recommended. There will, of course, be those who dislike quieter films in which talk matters and would rather be watching an action movie. But they are well catered for elsewhere and for many The Holdovers represents the kind of intelligent work which is all too rarely undertaken in the Hollywood of today.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa, Carrie Preston, Brady Hepner, Michael Provost, Ian Dolley, Jim Kaplan, Andrew Garman, Naheem Garcia, Stephen Thorne, Gillian Vigman, Tate Donovan, Darby Lee-Stack, Juanita Pearl, Bill Mootos.
Dir Alexander Payne, Pro Mark Johnson, Bill Block and David Hemingson, Screenplay David Hemingson, Ph Eigil Bryld, Pro Des Ryan Warren Smith, Ed Kevin Tent, Music Mark Orton, Costume Wendy Chuck.
Miramax/Gran Via Productions/CAA Media Finance-Universal Pictures.
133 mins. USA. 2023. US Rel: 27 October 2023. UK Rel: 19 January 2024. Cert. 15.
