Alexander Payne’s work can best be described as “cringe comedy,” where characters embarrass themselves in the worst way possible through their own bad behavior. When he’s on, we get modern classics like 1999’s Election. But his last movie was the underwhelming Downsizing, a movie with an interesting premise that fizzled out the longer it ran. However, Payne’s latest is The Holdovers, a movie that reunites him with Paul Giamatti, and if there’s an actor out there that was born to star in a Payne movie, it’s Paul Giamatti. Perhaps the movie would be a return to form for Payne after my previous disappointment.
I also saw that if I didn’t see The Holdovers this weekend, I might not get the chance to see it on a big screen again.
It’s 1970, and the exclusive New England boys boarding school Barton Academy is getting ready to close up for the Christmas holidays. A handful of students for a variety of reasons will be unable to leave, requiring one teacher to stay behind to watch them. That teacher is one Paul Hunham (Giamatti), a former Barton student himself, a grumpy misanthrope who holds all his students to nearly impossible standards, much to the frustration of the administration since he won’t make allowances for wealthy legacy students whose fathers might give the school money. Among the handful is Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa), a last minute addition who mostly just wants to go to Boston. Rounding out the group is kitchen manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), whose own only son died in Vietnam after graduating from Barton himself. It isn’t long before circumstances allow the other boys to leave Barton, leaving Paul, Angus, and Mary alone for the holidays.
As it is, Paul is a terrible sitter, one who decided that he will basically continue the school’s schedule for academics and exercise while following the rules to the letter. Angus isn’t necessarily a bad student, but he likewise doesn’t fit in well with the other snobby students of Barton, and it looks like his selfish mother and stepfather are out to do whatever they want while shuffling him around various boarding schools that he keeps getting expelled from. As for Mary, she is there to provide a bit of wisdom to Paul, something he might need since she seems to be one of the few people at Barton who actually seems willing to talk to him, but she still greatly misses her son. Can Paul and Angus find some common ground long enough to actually make something of this unplanned holiday?
I said above that Giamatti is probably the right choice to appear in any Payne movie, and that proves true. His Paul Hunham is a man who lives more for ancient civilizations, the class he teaches, than anything else. His life hasn’t exactly turned out the way he wanted it to, but he seems reluctant to really complain: Barton Academy and its ways are his life. Nicknamed “walleye” by both students and fellow faculty, he’s a man who may not care if anyone actually likes him and has spent so much time in the distant past that he really has no interest in the present. About all he and Angus have in common, something Mary seems inclined to feel as well, is that most of the Barton students (including the headmaster, himself an alumni) are a bunch of stuck-up, privileged, assholes.
The end result is a movie that feels like Payne’s return to form. The three leads all work well together, and while the bond that forms between student and teacher isn’t exactly a surprise, it is well-done, the sentimental side to the movie not too overwhelming as both Paul and Angus reveal their own secrets. They probably aren’t that different, and their interaction allows Paul to become something like a human being while Angus shows he can be something of a decent human being. I found the movie sweet and even moving at times, not what I expect from Payne, but done in a way that is very much a Payne-style movie. Keep Payne away from anything involving shrinking people and bring back Giamatti, and I know I’ll be looking forward to more of his movies in the future.
Grade: A
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