The Holdovers

Image credit: IMDb

I don’t know about you, but I always find movies about teacher-student relationships fascinating and rather touching. As a child I was always scared of my teachers because they were big, looming, authoritative figures, and as a teenager I just got the impression that I was just a part of their job. I know there are people out there who hugged their teachers regularly or remained in touch with them into adulthood, but that’s never been a part of my reality.

Perhaps it’s knowing, even on some level when you’re very small, that teaching is one of the hardest and most underappreciated (and underfunded) jobs in the world that makes movies about teachers and their students the more compelling: the idea that someone could believe so much in their job and the good that it does for people that they overcome incredible challenges and change lives – Dead Poets Society, To Sir With Love, Sister Act 2. Films where the relationship works both ways are even more fascinating: what could the student teach their professor? The Holdovers, one of the Oscar-nominated films for Best Picture last year, did just this.

The film follows Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a cranky history Professor who gets saddled with the task of remaining on campus at a New England boarding school to supervise the handful of students who are unable to go home for Christmas Break. Over the course of the break, he develops an unlikely relationship with a bright but audacious troublemaker (Dominic Sessa) and the head lunch lady (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who has recently lost her son in the Vietnam War.

A modest and small film with heart, I think the major appeal of The Holdovers is the vintage, grainy filter that it uses to create the aesthetic of a small-budget British film from the ‘60s or ‘70s. Putting us in mind of films like To Sir With Love or Billy Elliot, the film tells a simple story in which the protagonists undergo an emotional transformation through witty and loaded dialogue. There is very little physical or external narrative action that drives it, rather it’s the compelling performances and gorgeously artistic yet down-to-earth script that makes the 2 hours fly by.

Image credit: Classic Cinema

Giamatti treads this incredibly fine line between cantankerous, Scrooge-esque dictator and cynic with a soft side, as he begins the film hating his privileged students and taking a fiendish delight in making them miserable (which is very funny to watch) and ends it being inspired by one of them. Sessa plays the bright, but troubled teenager very well, with something of the bravado of John Bender but more eloquent and self-assured. And Randolph, who walked away with the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, is sweet, sassy and reserved while delivering the hard truths in perfectly inflected one-liners.

The Holdovers is an unexpectedly touching film that explores the complexities of human relationships within the setting of one of the most important institutions in society. Armed with interesting characters, a great script, and brilliant performances, it’s a deceptively simple and compelling piece of work.

Director: Alexader Payne, 2023

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Brady Hepner, Ian Dolley, Jim Kaplan, Michael Provost, & Andrew Garman