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The Holdovers movie review: A life-affirming character study
Updated On: 09 February, 2024 05:34 PM IST | Los Angeles | Johnson Thomas
Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is the Classics teacher who is tasked with staying on campus over the break, as chaperone to the few students who aren’t going home for Christmas
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The Holdovers movie review
Film: The Holdovers
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa, Carrie Preston.
Director: Alexander Payne
Rating: 4/5
Runtime: 133 min
The narrative opens in a New England boarding school over the Christmas break in 1970. An old-fashioned taskmaster, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is the Classics teacher who is tasked with staying on campus over the break, as chaperone to the few students who aren’t going home for Christmas. He is most hated and trolled mercilessly by his students but the curmudgeon and man of principles that he is, he weathers those storms with his head held high. He is obviously happy to put these rich kids through the ringer before their admissions to Ivy League colleges.
Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) the only kid with a decent grade in Paul’s Classics course, is one of handful of “holdovers” during Christmas break. Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the black head cook, who’s still grieving the loss of her son, a former student of the school who couldn’t afford college and so went to Vietnam, is yet another ‘Holdover.’ After a disastrously brief few days of controlling the unruly lot, Paul is left with only Angus in his care. The developing relationship between Paul and Angus is the heart of the film. As they challenge each other through the remaining days, the teacher and pupil learn a lot more about each other. Soon they come to realise that intrinsically, they are no different from each other.
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