Alexander Payne captures the star power of Massachusetts in ‘The Holdovers,’ featuring local landmarks from Boston Common to Somerville Theater.
By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News
“The Holdovers” is Alexander Payne’s brilliant treatise on loneliness and friendship. Set during the holidays in 1970, the film is a poignant throwback, yet it timelessly reflects everyday life and longing. In other words, Payne crafts a movie about the human condition and the loveliness and messiness that goes with it.
Paul Giamatti plays a curmudgeonly teacher at Barton Academy, an elite New England boarding school, forced to mind Angus Tully, a smart and rebellious student (newcomer Dominic Sessa) unable to journey home for Christmas break. Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“Only Murders in the Building”) co-stars as the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam. Giamatti’s Paul Hunham is a strict and universally hated history teacher who tends to humiliate his “entitled little degenerates” with devastating sarcasm. Well aware of his status, the grumpy teacher delights in marking up the papers of his “reprobates” in red ink. Payne and screenwriter David Hemingson mine rich humor from the hardass-teacher/wiseass-student dynamic, and Giamatti’s line readings are impeccable. The actor and the material are a match made in movie heaven.
Sessa, whom Payne plucked from the drama club at Deerfield Academy, gives such a lived-in performance it’s hard to believe “The Holdovers” is his movie debut. Payne calls on him to exhibit all the moods—excitement, sadness, frustration, joy—and hold his own against Giamatti—no small feat. Sessa is going to be a star. Randolph is the film’s secret weapon, delivering gut-punch work as Mary Lamb, a mother whose broken heart somehow remains open to others. Mary is the sage voice, the referee between Angus and Paul, the film’s soul. She stays behind during the winter break because the school was the last place she saw her son before he left for war. Christmas is a time “to be with your people,” so Mary stays at Barton.
Paul, Angus, and Mary might not come off as the happiest trio, but as the days pass, they grow closer. Predictable? Yes. But their evolution happens in unexpected ways. Much of the setting is at the school, but there are detours to a Christmas party and an overnight to Boston.
Sure, it’s a bit of a downer, but “The Holdovers” is also life-affirming. And did I state funny? Profound? It’s all those things and more, not to mention the fascinating Boston scenery and locations, including a sequence shot inside the Somerville Theater, where I watched the movie. That was surreal. (Sidenote: We were the first audience to see the film projected in 35mm, giving Eigil Bryld’s cinematography a more retro vibe).
“The Holdovers” reunites Payne and Giamatti, who starred in the director’s Oscar-winning “Sideways” in 2004. Payne nabbed a golden statuette for co-writing that movie’s screenplay. This year, expect “The Holdovers” also to snag nominations in multiple categories, including acting, writing, and directing. The level of verisimilitude shown by the cast and filmmakers is invaluable, as is the look of the film, which you’d swear was shot in 1970. Along with the time-appropriate music and cars, there’s even a vintage tube of Preparation-H ointment. “The Holdovers” might be a cozy valentine to the era, but it’s an early Christmas gift to the movie lovers of today.
‘The Holdovers’
Screened Oct. 30 at Somerville Theater
Rating: R for language, some drug use, and brief sexual material.
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa
Director: Alexander Payne
Writer: David Hemingson
Running time: 133 minutes
Where to watch: In theaters
Grade: A
Boston Movie News 