Title: The Holdovers

Year: 2023

Genre: Comedy | Drama |

Runtime: 133 min

Director: Alexander Payne

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Carrie Preston

Nobody likes teacher Paul Hunham (Giamatti) — not his students, not his fellow faculty, not the headmaster, who all find his pomposity and rigidity exasperating. With no family and nowhere to go over the Christmas holiday in 1970, Paul remains at school to supervise students unable to journey home. After a few days, only one student holdover remains — a troublemaking 15-year-old named Angus, a good student whose bad behavior always threatens to get him expelled.

The film The Holdovers is about troubled schoolchildren staying in a remote school during the holiday.  We get a grumpy teacher to hold the fortress and many restless kids, who stay against their will. It takes place during the 1969 holidays. Paul Hunman played by Paul Giamatti, in directed by Alexander Paynes, is a grumpy teacher, who resents the delusional task at hand. It is a rather simple story, but it has a cozy atmosphere, like a good feeling sense which director Payne ironically has commented as ”nauseating”.

It is a study of how a student and a teacher’s dynamic in dialogue and action.  We get to go deep into the characters, especially when a major bunch of students goes away for the holidays. Paul can’t control his emotions against this student, who always ends up in trouble.  

Giamatti makes an effort to charm it up. Despite the character flaws of smelling like a fish at the end of the day and being a boring teacher. He knows when and what to deliver. He is the shy, lonely guy that some could relate to. He has a special relationship with Lydia Crane. Dominic Sessa, as Angus Tully, is the driving force of the film. The core of the movie and he delivers a remarkably stable performance.

It has humor, it has heart, and a low pace that works, even if the grainy and corny additions in the post, create a friendly atmosphere, as this relationship between the student and the teacher warms up.  It’s worth a watch for those who like a film in the 1970s and the relationship based on what is not supposed to be happening. Despite the tragedy, the film has a humane side.