Rating: R | Runtime: 133 minutes
Release Date: October 27th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Focus Features
Director(s): Alexander Payne
Writer(s): David Hemingson

Son of a bitch! That’s another detention!

You can never be too sure with TIFF People’s Choice contenders as far as whether the hype is real. Between audiences being drunk on festival air or the sometimes-vast chasm separating a “crowd-pleaser” from “critical acclaim,” you have to go in with a grain of salt (some would say this is even more true with Sundance). Even so, I still had high expectations for Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. One because it re-teamed the director with Sideways breakthrough Paul Giamatti, but also because the tone seemed perfectly attuned to his The Descendants vibe. It’s with pleasure that I reveal the film exceeded both the crazy hype and my own lofty hopes.

Set around Christmas 1970 at a private boarding school in New England, David Hemingson’s wonderful script focuses on the establishment’s holiday castaways as they are unwittingly thrust into each other’s care. First is the curmudgeon ancient civilizations teacher Paul Hunham (Giamatti), tasked with the responsibility of babysitting as punishment for failing a senator’s son despite the pleas of Barton’s headmaster (Andrew Garman’s Woodrup). Even if he’s never left the campus’s surroundings since starting to teach many decades ago, he’d still rather read quietly in his room than herd wild reprobates.

Next is Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s cafeteria chief who’s forgone spending the holidays with family after the death of her son in Vietnam. And last is young Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a cocksure loner who picks fights in part because his self-loathing makes losing them as much of a desire as his ego covets winning. He was supposed to spend the holiday with his mother and stepfather only to be told last-second (and after already mocking fellow a classmate, Brady Hepner’s Teddy, for having to stay) that he’d been deleted from the itinerary. So, add self-pity to his list of emotional troubles and enjoy the inevitable fireworks.

In heartfelt fashion, however, this festive-adjacent film isn’t simply a comedy of teens running amok while Giamatti chases, ruler in-hand. That exists too, but only insofar as it allows us to recognize how similarly damaged Paul and Angus truly are. Add Mary’s grief and this trio is ripe for discovering just how lucky they all are when they’re not simply assuming others are luckier. She says it best when Hunham goes on a rant about “silver spoons,” quickly suppressing his indignation with a reminder that he was a Barton student once too. And he faced his own struggles, of which we’ll soon discover once the boys embrace their vulnerability.

It becomes a bit of a buddy film as a result. Hunham and Tully have giant chips on their shoulders, but also the capacity for humility when called out about them. Trust takes a little longer to acquire than understanding, but it does arrive at the perfect time to knock some sense into both. Sessa is great as the ignored teen trying to do right by the parent he cannot see while revolting against the parent who refuses to see him and Randolph is unforgettable as the barer of sage wisdom (desperate to get Hunham to embrace his humanity above duty) and broken mother who needs to take her own advice as far as not hiding away in solitude.

And Giamatti shines. An alcoholic with numerous ailments that have kept him celibate, alone, and content ever since his days of a virility (whose tales would “make your toes curl!”) ended long ago. He’s a prisoner to his ideals and the teachings of a long-since dead man who gave him an opportunity when no one else would, unable to evolve and see how the rising chaos of the world and lowering IQs of his students means he must adapt and ensure his message gets through even stronger to change things rather than simply give up with a sanctimoniously smug shrug. Angus has the potential of restoring his faith in education just as he might just restore the boy’s faith in himself.

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(l-r.) Dominic Sessa stars as Angus Tully, Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham and Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb in director Alexander Payne’s THE HOLDOVERS, a Focus Features release. Credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC