The Holdovers: Heartfelt Comedy of 2024

Release Date：Nov/13/2023

Genre：Comedy/Drama

Director：Alexander Payne

Cast：Paul Giamatti、Da'Vine Joy Randolph、Dominic Sessa、Carrie Preston、Brady Hepner

Viola's Rating：8.9

Being nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing, The Holdovers went back home with Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Supporting Actress Award. The feature film was released on Nov 10, 2023, in the US, and will probably be brought up once again after the Academy Awards.

This Christmas version of Dead Poet Society is a dramatic comedy that drives the audience’s laughter and tears at the same time. The plot is mainly about a cranky history teacher at a boarding school, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), who is forced to remain on campus over the Christmas holidays with a grieving cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), and a troubled student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), who has no place to go.

As long as you’ve seen any movies about a boarding school, you’re familiar with the story that there are always students left behind during holidays. In the Harry Potter series, Harry stays at school because he’s an orphan and the Dursleys are the people he least wants to see over the break. However, The Holdovers is set in the 1970s, and all the students come from affluent if not wealthy families. Tully has to stay at school for some reasons to be revealed in the film. Although the structure is conventional, there are still bittersweet character interactions in it for us to discover.

Unlike Robin Williams’ character in Dead Poet Society, who brings an unorthodox teaching method to the traditional boarding school, Paul in The Holdovers is probably the most boring and the most hated teacher in the flick. Even with the differences, both teachers end up building steadfast relationships with some of their students. Paul’s purpose in life is to remain at his alma mater, which he loves very much, to mold these boys into proper men who are actually better than himself.

Moral principles are mentioned in The Holdovers several times in different forms. While teaching Tully how to distinguish between right and wrong, Paul also demonstrates that there are always conditions, and that’s where we can showcase our characters and earn respect.

Everything in The Holdovers takes place within two weeks, but it feels like Paul and Tully have truly become intimate friends. The more experiences you share with someone, the more you get to know them. Even if Paul is the teacher Tully hated the most before Christmas, all these precious times they spend together become memories to remember.

Even though The Holdovers doesn’t come with a surprising script, it’s still an enjoyable and happy motion picture with a bunch of character-driven dialogues and is no doubt one of the best movies in 2024 so far.

Picture Credit: IMDb