The Holdovers
Why it's a new Christmas favorite and why you should go see it
When the opening scenes of The Holdovers begin and the opening credits role, another film about a teacher at a New England boys prep school immediately comes to mind. Of course, I’m referring to Dead Poets Society.
The latter film doesn’t specifically take place in winter, as does The Holdovers, but for me, it was reminiscent of the winter scene. “It’s a new Dead Poets Society for our generation,” I whispered to Ben in the nearly empty theater.
After the first few minutes, though, the dubious similarities — winter in New England, a boys prep school, the sense that it’s taking place in the latter half of the 20th century (DPS is set in 1959 while this film is set in the final weeks of the year 1970) — dissipate.
The teacher of this hour is not the inspiring, poetical, emotionally-connected John Keating (Robin Williams). Paul Hunham, played by the brilliant Paul Giamatti, is a crotchety old history teacher obsessed with the Peloponnesian War. Of course, upon further reflection, it makes sense that a teacher of literature and poetry would be more in tune with the inner world of human emotion, while a history teacher is an information cache of battle tactics and dates.
I’m kidding. I love history, and a good history teacher can weave together timelines, geo-political relations, and collective (or individual) human experience. And, in a way, that’s what Paul Hunham learns to do in this absurd and humorous yet deeply feeling film.
First, the initial plot: it’s Christmastime, and families have come to pick up their sons from boarding school for the holidays. Several boys, for various reason, have been left to stay over through the winter break (one thinks of Harry Potter at Hogwarts) and the teacher who has been chosen for the duty of supervisor/babysitter is the most disliked educator at the school.
Hunham takes his job very seriously and informs several boys, including Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), that they will observe regular school schedule of sleep, study, and exercise — outside, because even though it’s fifteen degrees and snowing, the indoor gym is not finished yet.
Dominic Sessa is exactly right for the role of angsty 1970’s teen who has been thrown out of several other schools and gets on the wrong side of his peers. He’s wily and sarcastic, has a strong sense of self-worth and entitlement, and isn’t afraid of anyone. The stakes are high though. He can’t mess this up because if he gets thrown out of another school, his parents will banish him to military school.
Hunham doesn’t know this. And he thinks that every boy at the school is an entitled prick, and believes his job is to shape and mold his pupils into men of character and integrity. But his prejudice toward them, his belief that they are all spoiled and born with a silver spoon, causes him to go about his molding and shaping in all the wrong ways.
When the other holdovers catch a break and get to leave in a helicopter for the ski slopes, Tully’s parents can’t be reached. And then there were two. Well, three really. Enter Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school cook and grieving mother of a promising young alum of Barton who was killed in the Vietnam War.
The boys would be shocked to see Hunham interact with Mary. He’s kind and gentle. So he does have a heart! A heart for those he perceives to be hurting, vulnerable, and less fortunate than the boys he teaches.
Mary has a heart for Angus. She sees that underneath the bravado, Angus is just a boy who’s been abandoned by his family during the time of year when families should be together. She’s perceptive, and Tully can’t fool her with his external façade of pomp and disdain. He just needs some love and attention, and a little break from Barton rules over this long winter holiday. Mary eventually convinces Paul that giving Angus what he wants isn’t going to ruin anyone (or so she thinks).
Then the adventures really begin.
This is exactly my kind of movie. I love everything about it, from the style to the script to the slow reveal. The first half of the movie takes place at school, as Paul and Angus antagonize each other with brilliantly, hilariously delivered zingers. And you think: is this it? Where could this go from here?
Oh, but it does go places! Places that will surprise and touch you. Early on in the film, Angus and his mother say something on the phone about missing his father. Later on, we learn exactly what that means.
At one point, Mary tells Hunham, when he expresses doubt that he could write a full book, maybe only a monograph, “you can’t even dream a full dream.”
In the same way that Angus’s story slowly unfolds, Hunham’s personal history is revealed in a surprising (and again, very funny) way. They are far more alike than they ever could have realized without this extended, forced time together.
You can’t ignore the class and race themes in The Holdovers. They’re stark, but subtle. I didn’t feel as though it was shoveling issues of race and inequality down my throat. But the way these very real problems were portrayed filled me with compassion and empathy.
Most of the boys at Barton are guaranteed acceptance into Harvard while Mary’s son, who couldn’t afford college, enrolled in the army in the hopes that one day they would pay for his college. Before he can get there, he is killed in a war that many people now look back on as completely unjust.
Mary and her son are black. Hunham and his students are white, except for one young Korean student. The race and class issues compound. And I’m sure one could say that, at that point, the class issue is a result of the race issue. But Hunham isn’t exactly privileged (or as privileged, if privilege is a scale) as his students. As this becomes clear, it explains the affinity he feels toward Mary and her son.
Further in the story, we’re reminded that even if you are privileged, it can’t save you from the pain and suffering that touches everyone’s lives. Angus hasn’t had everything handed to him on a silver platter with that silver spoon. He’s been through great suffering for someone his age, and who he is, what he does, is completely informed by that.
In the end, the choice that brings Angus and Hunham together is also the choice that forces them apart. But the transformation has already taken place; their lives will never be the same.
And why would I write about a movie with two male leads in Leading Ladies?
One, because it’s simply a great movie that’s almost perfect and I think everyone should see!
Correction: everyone who is legally able to enter an R-rated theater. It’s rated r for language, some substance use (alcohol, weed), and sexual references. Read the parent’s guide on IMDb for specifics.
But I also wanted to give a shout out to Da’Vine Joy Randolph for her performance as Mary Lamb! She’s powerful and moving in this role. There are several times that the camera lingers on her face as she’s feeling the deepest grief and sadness, and I completely believer her. She is Mary Lamb.
I first encountered her as a funny supporting character in the television series High Fidelity, a remake of the John Cusack film with the leads as women. Then, more recently in my viewing, she plays an NYPD detective in Only Murders in the Building. Her character in this movie is so different from these other two roles, but I suppose the disdainful side glance she can give someone who is being ridiculous is still the same in each one. It would stop anyone in their tracks!
The Holdovers reminds me that no matter my perception of how great or privileged or rose-colored someone else’s life is, I most likely have no idea what’s going on internally, what happened to them in their past, what they’re still reckoning with today. I would want someone else to give me the same grace and benefit-of-the-doubt.
At a time when our differences might seem unconquerable, The Holdovers is the new Christmas film we need to be reminded otherwise.
