The Holdovers
Films & TV
“In truth, The Holdovers features a sense of healing that is mutual amongst all three left at the school. The path that takes them there provides gentle lessons of compassion for all involved in community making. And, for Christian people, that’s all of us,” says Jonathan Sargeant from FormEdFaith at St Francis College
Healing is an important part of the Christian gospel. The stories of Jesus and others in the Bible are well-known to us. Healing can take many forms. Spiritually broken people need restoration just like the woman with constant bleeding (Matthew 9.20-22) or the man with leprosy (Matthew 8.1-4). But how can this spiritual restoration happen? Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers charts one course with charm and exceptional grace.
In December 1970, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is a stricter-than-strict teacher at Barton Academy, an exclusive New England boarding school where he terrorises students with sarcasm and a cruel attitude. With Christmas approaching, Barton’s headmaster sentences Hunham to chaperone the “holdover” students — those who do not go home for the two-week holidays. This is considered an unpleasant task, but Hunham’s commitment to harsh marking has cost the school a wealthy donor, so his punishment is clear. Being a holdover student is no fun either, and less so when the teacher enacts an exacting programme of study and exercise in the snow-covered grounds.
Food provided by head cook Mary Lamb (the wonderful Da’Vine Joy Randolph) provides a little respite, though her grief for her son killed in Vietnam is still palpable. Amongst the five students is Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa in a breakout role), a little older than the other students due to previous behavioural problems. When the other four are able to leave on an impromptu skiing holiday, Tully, Lamb and Hunham are left behind, each with their own hurts and spiritual injuries, to survive the rest of the holidays.
Now you might think there’s nothing new there. You’d be right to a point.
But…
Films love telling us stories we know. There’s something comforting about watching a tale, even though we’ve seen other iterations before — the hero’s journey; the mismatched lovers falling for each other; the retired cop lured back by an unsolvable case; even the retired criminal back for one last heist. We know the story beats, they come as expected and many of us are satisfied that the film we saw lived up to our hopes completely.
In some ways, Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers is like this. Payne has done this kind of thing before. But in all the ways that count, it is something else entirely: an instant, razor-sharp classic destined for re-watching at the end of every year.
In fact, Payne has made a career out of treading a very fine line that has tripped many film makers up. His ability to blend existential sadness with moments of joy and laughter has marked all of his films, like Sideways, The Descendants, About Schmidt and Nebraska. That line is difficult because sentimentality lies on one side and gloom on the other. The deft touch of David Hemingson’s script constantly navigates tonal shifts from the gentle ache of loss to the joy of people making the leap of trust to be vulnerable with each other, as well as genuine acerbic hilarity.
Giamatti has never been better than he is here. He is deserving of the Golden Globe he won for this role recently, as is Randolph. It’s intriguing to watch him in The Holdovers and see the breadth and nuance and growth of his craft, especially remembering his fine turn in 2009’s Sideways, the Payne film about wine fanciers. On the surface he may not seem like leading man material, but he has staked a convincing claim for that status here. Long may he reign.
There is some delight in the reversal of the typical saintly-teacher-changes-students’-lives trope seen in so many films: Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Blackboard Jungle, Dangerous Minds, et al. As a teacher, I love that storyline. Here though, we see how students can change the lives of those who teach them. This is fitting, since education is always a two-way street.
In truth, The Holdovers features a sense of healing that is mutual amongst all three left at the school. The path that takes them there provides gentle lessons of compassion for all involved in community making.
And, for Christian people, that’s all of us!
The Holdovers, rated M and directed by Alexander Payne, is currently showing in cinemas.
Editor’s note: Interested in learning more about film, the Arts, and the many intersections with life and faith? Jonathan Sargeant is teaching DA2013Z/DA9013Z God and Contemporary Culture: Theology and the Arts in Semester One 2024. Please contact Jonathan Sargeant for more information via jonathan.sargeant@anglicanchurchsq.org.au.
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