Susan Granger’s review of “The Holdovers” (Focus Features)
When I evaluate movies on a Gauge of 1 to 10, my primary criteria revolves around: How well did the filmmakers accomplish what they set out to do?
So when I give a total 10 that usually indicates one of the Best Films of the Year. Alexander Payne’s new comedic drama “The Holdovers” qualifies.
Best known for his Oscar-winning “Sideways” (2004), Payne’s other films include “Citizen Ruth,” “About Schmidt,” “Election,” “The Descendants,” “Nebraska” and “Downsizing.”
Set at Christmastime in 1970 at prestigious Barton Academy, a rural Massachusetts prep school, “The Holdovers” revolves around Paul ’Walleye’ Hunham (Paul Giamatti), the cynical, curmudgeonly classics instructor forced to supervise the unfortunate boys unable to return home for the two-week holiday break.
When a rich kid’s dad arrives in his helicopter, he offers to take them all skiing – if their parents give permission. That leaves only arrogant, angry Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa) whose honeymooning mother and stepfather have abandoned him and cannot be reached.
So Paul and Angus are left on the abandoned campus with the school’s grieving cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph); her only son Curtis, one of Barton’s few Black graduates, was recently killed in Vietnam.
Screenwriter David Hemingson devises such distinctive, compelling backstories for each of these three lonely, sad souls that their traumatic misadventures turn out to be therapeutic, yet director Alexander Payne never succumbs to sentimentality.
The subtle, character-driven performances are superb. For Paul Giamatti (“Billions”), academia is familiar territory since his mother was a teacher, as were his grandparents, and his father, A. Bartlett Giamatti, was President of Yale. He perfectly embodies the irascible, misanthropic professor of Ancient Civilizations.
When Dominc Sessa was ‘discovered’ by casting director Susan Shopmaker, he was a drama student at Deerfield Academy, where some of the location filming took place – along with Groton, Northfield Mount Herman and St. Mark’s.
And Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“Only Murders in the Building”) adroitly utilizes humor and humanity to hide her heartbreak.
Plus there’s outstanding craftsmanship: Eigil Bryld’s snowy cinematography and Ryan Warren Smith’s nostalgic ‘70s production design are outstanding.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Holdovers” is a bittersweet, touching 10, playing in theaters.
