Set in 1970, “The Holdovers” (2023) unfolds over the two-week winter break at the fictional Barton Academy, a Massachusetts all-boys boarding school. Ancient history teacher and alum Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), the most hated faculty member among students and colleagues, supervises the students who are stuck at school during Christmas break. Rebellious junior Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa in his onscreen debut) is one of those students, and the only other adult staying on the premises is kitchen supervisor (the breakfast looks good) and mourning mother Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who makes sure that they get fed. Danny (Naheem Garcia) drops in to maintain the premises and visit Mary. Because he isot celebrating the holidays with his mother, and Hunham is so strict and insists on sticking to their school schedule, Tully feels abandoned and punished. Will they ever get the Christmas spirit?
Previews for in “The Holdovers” were amazing and felt as if the film was shot in the 1970s, but was engaging unlike the acting and directing exercise of “Maestro” (2023) or Todd Haynes’ work which feels lived in but also a bit too stylized and remote to get lost in. Giamatti and the rest of the cast sealed the deal. After watching the movie, I found out that director Alexander Payne admitted to briefly dating Rose McGowan, who accused him of sexual misconduct when she was fifteen years old, which he denied. This off screen note seems to be the sole detraction from the film so consider yourself warned and do not go further if it is a dealbreaker for you. I watched the film under a variety of negative conditions, which would normally ruin the movie for me, so the film had to be so good that it would still shine under the circumstances, which it did.
Bad news first: I love a Jesus shout out, but once “The Holdovers” revealed that Mary’s son’s name was Curtis Ezra Lamb, and he died in the Vietnam War, it required a lot of self-restraint not to roll my eyes straight back into my head and out the door. So the only black guy died before the movie even started and would act as a spectre of possible death in Vietnam for those who cannot avoid the draft and end up in the military. It is a sword of Damocles hanging over the prep school’s proceedings though it seems far-fetched for the draft to affect anyone in this movie. On one hand, it is fair and a true story that Black men would be more likely to get drafted and killed in Vietnam. On the other hand, the parallels between the Biblical story and Mary’s backstory are a little heavy-handed, especially given the characters’ names. Christmas is about the virgin Mary giving birth to the son of God who would die for our sins and save us from death. This Mary’s sorrow grounds the film in real-world threats. Also “The Holdovers” opens with a choir director quoting in practice, “In the beginning was the Word,” which screams Jesus reference. So the possible combination of a magical Negro combined with the Black dude dies first trope is a bit hard to stomach at first, but possible to get over, especially thanks to Mary’s seething resentment that her son was not as safe as the children that she cares for. Also on repeat viewings, the parallels work because Mary’s gradual emotional breakdown feels like more than mourning her son, but also her fiancé and the life that she wanted. The trajectory of her narrative is about accepting the tragic events in her life and her willingness to move on.
“The Holdovers” is more about rejecting assumptions about characters’ rough exteriors and getting to their heart and excising the trauma that makes them act the way that they normally do. How do a group of unlikeable people mesh, and will they garner the audience’s favor? People may act horribly but even marginal supporting characters get to share their side of the story. Everyone is the hero of their own story, but they also retain the same traits that cast them as the villain. The film is incredibly empathetic to everyone, even the headmaster, Dr. Hardy Woodrup (Andrew Garman), who is struggling to keep the school afloat and wealthy parents happy. There is this nice detail where the locals buy the Barton Christmas tree back for resale after the students leave for break. It is “The Gift of the Magi” and “A Christmas Carol” without the supernatural or pat, uncomplicated happy endings.
The inhuman, incapable of dreaming or small talk curmudgeon Hunham, who bears several physical afflictions which make casual, quotidian human contact difficult, seems to exist solely to torment his students and has no sense of how normal people behave on the holidays. His every waking moment is consumed with evangelical passion for his work, ancient civilization, and contempt for the students who do not hold it in the same esteem as he does, but he is not happy. He is disillusioned and hopeless over the state of the world. He self-medicates with alcohol constantly, has an apocalyptic view of the world after witnessing the senseless loss of the Vietnam War and resents his students for their privilege. He has stopped believing that he makes a difference and believes his tutelage is an exercise in futility.
“The Holdovers” shows how Hunham begins to thaw out from decades of aggrieved stasis and starts to care about others. Dr. Woodrup admonishes him to treat the boys with “latitude,” but not for their sake. The school’s closing chapel features a sermon about caring for those less fortunate, those without bountiful tables and family, i.e. the titular group. After Hunham kvetches, “They’ve had it easy their whole lives,” Mary corrects him, “You don’t know that. Did you?” She constantly encourages him to “go easy on them.” At a Christmas party, a coworker from town, Miss Lydia Crane (Carrie Preston of “True Blood”), appears to be the only colleague who proactively favors Hunham and encourages him, “If that’s all true, now is when they most need someone like you.” All these lessons land, and the Christmas spirit snags another victim!
Hunham becomes human with Tully as his Achilles heel. Hunham cannot dismiss Tully as a bad student, but also offends his sensibilities because Tully is defiant and bucks against Hunham’s strict oversight. While Tully is loudly and proudly obnoxious, i.e. acting out, especially when he feels someone is a bully, there are numerous quiet moments where Tully shows surreptitious kindness to those around him: younger students, his classmates and Hunham. He also is a normal kid who is interested in girls and given the right environment, could have a decent life. He is not the kind of kid who rebels because he is rotten, he just needs his psychological wounds tended and someone in his corner. He is an awkward kid in a man’s beanpole body and is not ready to be cut loose to fend for himself yet regardless of how he acts.
The Christmas miracle is Hunham’s reawakening and realizing that Tully needs him. Mary and Hunham act as Tully’s substitute parents while his family is elsewhere. Mary and Hunham redirect the energy that they normally focus on their loss and sorrow and invest it into making Tully feel special. Hunham transforms into someone who is self-sacrificing and cares more for Tully than Tully’s parents and gives Tully what he needs. “The Holdovers” may not have the same impact on viewers as a first viewing, which manages to surprise by showing the unexpected similarities between Tully and Hunham in the third act. Tully and Hunham become vulnerable with each other, and Tully decides to save him from several possible doomed fates: following his father’s footsteps or becoming the next Lamb or Hunham. Because Hunham is not given to empty praise or sugarcoating a situation, Hunham’s comforting words land and heal, another Christmas miracle. “You’ve got time to turn things around. In real life, your history does not have to dictate your destiny.”
“The Holdovers” is a movie about human connection and second chances. It holds stories as sacred trusts. “Remember the text is first…so the text is what you’re concentrating on. Make it part of the music.” Words can be elevated and become art. They are not owed to anyone, especially those who would not empathize with them, but only wield the story to mock the storyteller. “If you truly want to understand the present or yourself, you must begin in the past. You see, history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present.” When Hunham’s past is unveiled after bumping into a former classmate, Hunham explains to Tully, “He’s not entitled to my story. I am.” Connection transcends age, class, race and gender, and with the right amount of connection, people can save souls and lives, and while saving another’s life, save themselves.
Stepping out of his routine and comfort zone, the Barton campus, Hunham ends up being the unlikely, atheist Christ figure. “Not for ourselves alone are we born.” He transforms into Tully’s fiercest protector repeatedly saving him from his sins. “The Holdovers” unflinchingly sets up Hunham’s sacrifice and the potential devastating effect that it could have on him, but Hunham does not suffer a metaphorical death, but a spiritual resurrection: a new sense of purpose, new possibilities, a life, not of contempt, but possibility. He can dream again after stopping an individual apocalypse.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
“The Holdovers” holds a special place in Massachusetts’ heart because it was shot here. “O Little Town of Bethlehem” plays two times during the film and accompanies a montage of the school’s surrounding area. There is a field trip into Boston, a City on a Hill. Boston becomes the new Promised Land and new Jerusalem.
If Hunham had worked at Barton after getting kicked out of Harvard, then why does the dialogue sound as if he has never been on holdover duty before 1970, and as if he never spoke to Lydia or Mary until then? Maybe because he was such a renowned asshole, Barton never put him in charge so he could stick to himself.
Shout out to Judy Clotfelter (Gillian Vigman), Tully’s mom. Yes, she may not be selfless and completely fed up with her son, but once she saw what was up—a mad husband and a hard-headed son, she found a man who would pay for both with extra money on the side for them. She did not have to keep taking care of her ex, but she stood by him in sickness even with a divorce. Mad respect! Couldn’t be me.
A movie could have been devoted to the ski trip alone. I loved the spectrum of kids in this film. Jason Smith (Michael Provost), America’s answer to “Saltburn” Felix Canton (Jacob Ellordi), is a football star and richest kid on campus, but he is also the nicest and does his best to keep the peace and protect the younger guys. After Christmas break, Tully stops being provocative and needling Teddy Kountze (Brady Hepner), the worst kid of the bunch, a biased bully, but Hepner deserves props for showing flashes of his hurt soul.