The Holdovers

 

Dominic Sessa, Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti in “The Holdovers.” Focus Features photo via IMDB.

Considering that it's billed as a feel-good movie for the holidays, there's something slightly Scroogelike in admitting I didn't love “The Holdovers” as much as I expected to.

There's lots to like though.

It reunites award-winning director Alexander Payne with his “Sideways” star Paul Giamatti in a bittersweet coming-of-age dramedy set in a New England prep school in the last week of 1970. Giamatti plays priggish classics teacher Paul Hunham, convinced that civilization hit its zenith with ancient Greece and has been in a downward slide ever since.

He treats his students accordingly, referring to them as troglodytes and reprobates.

Although he bullies his students with his intellectual rigor, Mr. Hunham is hard to take too seriously. His corduroy wardrobe is stodgy, he smells, and his eyes go in different directions. “Walleye” is the hardly affectionate nickname given to him behind his back by fellow faculty members as well as the student body of Barton Academy.

Pity the poor handful of boys who can't go home for the holiday break when he gets the assignment of babysitting them in the dorms. Among them is Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a bright, rebellious challenge for the by-the-rules teacher. Feeding them is Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), the black cafeteria supervisor grieving the loss of her own son in Vietnam. They're a unique trinity, three broken souls sheltering in place at the allegedly most wonderful time of the year.

David Hemingson contributes the script that echoes with the preppie angst of such classics as “Catcher in the Rye” or “Dead Poet's Society.” Young Dominic Sessa makes his screen debut, more than holding his half of the two shots with lovable veteran Giamatti. Sessa never seems to be acting, relying instead on the awkward anxieties of his own adolescence to make the portrayal so real.

“The Holdovers” upends the familiar father-figure-and-son dynamics by making each of them such damaged goods. Throw scene-stealing Randolph into the mix and the movie turns into one of those rare but uplifting instances of everyone saving everyone else.

Like director Payne's best work – personal favorites include “About Schmidt,” “Sideways,” “Nebraska” and “The Descendants” – the setting is a character in the story. This time it's snowy New England, offering a postcard assortment of colonial settings to come in from and get warm.

While Payne's trademarks are wisdom and empathy for his very vulnerable characters, the one glitch this time is predictability. Ever since Charles Dickens created the template in “A Christmas Carol,” audiences have known that heartlessness stems from deep wounds and is, ultimately, a pathway to salvation. We know where “The Holdovers” is headed the first time we see the poster. Hemingson's script offers few surprises. It doesn't crackle. The dialogue often feels like actors reciting lines.

The movie also continues a disquieting trend on screens this year, as I watch eras I actually lived through transformed into what the industry calls period pieces. Often their filmmakers were kids at the time or not even born yet.

Most of the small (but much appreciated) audience for this blog falls into my demographic niche – once invincible baby boomers, now the market for CPAPs and Depends – who may know what I'm talking about.

“Authentic” is a much used word these days, signifying things or people who are real and true. But when I was growing up in those eras that have become period pieces, the word authentic appeared prominently on the boxes of airplanes and battleships my little fingers assembled. 

In those days authentic referred to a replica made of plastic.

On my way out of the theater after watching “The Holdovers,” I noticed a poster for the 20^th anniversary rerelease of “Love Actually.” Now there's a holiday classic that still crackles with originality and warmth two decades later. That's the difference between authentic and the real thing, actually.

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