_{“We cannot sacrifice our integrity on the altar of their entitlement.” Mr Hunham in The Holdovers}

It’s cold, it’s Christmas and five assorted students in a private boarding school are doomed to spend the holiday on campus. Mr Hunham is their reluctant babysitter, and Mary Lamb their heartbroken caterer.

The plot sounds predictable, and I thought the whole thing would be too gooey for my liking. I was wrong. I loved this. David Hemingson’s writing is delivered so completely and so physically by the three leads – Mr Hunham (Paul Giamatti), Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) – that I felt immersed from the start in the boys’ school. It’s all about personalities at the beginning and then gradually, thanks to the palette-subdued filming, the lack of mobile phones, and the occasional mention of the Vietnam War, it becomes clear that the story is set decades previously.

However, the question right at the heart of it has not changed over the decades – how will an old, and apparently unloved and boring teacher, be able to control the unhappy teenagers? The answer is revealed slowly, and made clearer by the removal of four of the group to leave only Angus, Mr Hunham and Mary. Over the rest of the film their stories emerge little by little, sometimes with a hint of ribbon and at others with a heart twanging sadness, but always the camera pulls out fast enough to keep the pace moving. Alexander Payne’s directing gives us a look at the loneliness of life, but he does not encourage us to wallow in pity for anyone, however sorry they feel for themselves … at least not until the goodbyes right at the end.

The film lasts a little under two hours. The score is gentle, and the settings simple and straightfoward. I found it an engrossing watch, my emotions flying this way and that, one minute laughing and the next minute sniffing. Thinking about it on my way home I wasn’t skipping down the street, but I did feel hopeful … and slightly stronger.

I found this article in Time magazine with more information about the film and the writer.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023