Review by George Kozera for Mr. Will Wong
Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is a professor at the prestigious all-boys Barton Academy in the ’70s. Equally disliked by the students and staff, Hunham passes out failing grades with a glee that is borderline sadistic and comes across as having absolutely no social skills nor graces.
Forced to remain on campus over the Christmas holidays to babysit a small handful of students who, for some reasons, have nowhere else to go and are forced by Hunham to do school assignments versus relaxing and enjoying the holiday break, Giamatti excels in these moments when portraying this nebbish and frequently clueless character.
Due to a cinematic happenstance, most of the students are whisked away from Barton in a helicopter to a skiing vacation, leaving behind the brainy but troublesome Angus (Dominic Sessa) and the school’s cook Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who is still grieving the loss of her only son in Vietnam. How these three distinctly different characters interact and eventually bond and learn life lessons from each other is the impetus behind Director Alexander Payne’s latest, THE HOLDOVERS.
Whereas I have always been loathed to reveal plotlines in my reviews as the beauty of seeing movies is in the reveals (and there is a wealth of many funny and poignant moments throughout this Film’s 134 minutes running time), I have no qualms in sharing my thoughts about the Movie.
I have a grudging respect for two-time Academy Award winner Alexander Payne’s body of work. He excels in bringing out the best in the Actors he works with, many of whom received well deserved Oscar nominations. When adapting screenplays on top of directing, he brilliantly surpasses his movies’ original source material with finesse and bravado. It is a puzzlement to me as to why many of his films leave me elated and frustrated all at the same time.
All those past feelings dissipated as I became entranced with THE HOLDOVERS, due to the letter-perfect performances from newcomer Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. As the rebellious, but brilliant Angus, Sessa masterfully takes his character’s arc to astonishing heights. You’ll love him. You might not like him a lot, but you will be hypnotized by Sessa. Da’Vine Joy Randolph is an accomplished scenestealer, whether playing the detective on “Only Murders in the Building” or overshadowing her A-list Co-stars Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Ratcliffe in “The Lost City”. Whereas her character Mary may not have the lion’s share of one-liners (but when she does have them, her delivery is stratospheric), watching Randolph straddle grief with tenacity and grace. It is a flawless performance and very Oscar-worthy.
Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti have worked together on “Sideways” and they must have developed a synergy together to attain their artistic goals. Giamatti always brings integrity to his roles and, most of the time throughout THE HOLDOVERS, he is magnetic. I personally found his accent and vocal pyrotechnics a tad mannered and his character’s progression somewhat theatrical, needing some suspension of belief, but those are minor irksome flies in the ointment.
It has been years that I’ve been searching for a new Christmas-themed movie to add to my perennial must-watch movies during the month of December and I am thrilled to be able to add THE HOLDOVERS to the list.
Focus Features and Universal Pictures Canada will release
THE HOLDOVERS In Toronto on November 3, 2023
& In Theatres Nationwide on November 10, 2023.
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