A Review of Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers”
Poignancy, bitter-sweet, memorable life lessons, and 70s nostalgia, all nicely wrapped in this holiday package of a film
The thought alone is hell of one having to stay at school throughout their entire Christmas break, but this is indeed what Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) has to go through when his parents decide to use the holiday as their own honeymoon, leaving him at the New England prep school of Barton Academy, stuck with only the quirky disgruntled alcoholic history professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) and bereaved cafeteria worker Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). Hunham is not well-liked by anyone — not by his students, nor by his fellow faculty and staff for his regimental uptightness, cynical flare, and academic snobbishness. His only true friends it seems are his books, his pipe, and Jim Beam. At first, it’s rather obvious that the likes of Tully and Hunham sharing the same roof for two weeks will likely end with one of them being dead, but as time progresses, it’s not long before the two, as with Mary, form an unexpected and intimate bond — both of them serving the other as both student and mentor.
