Holiday film: The Holdovers

Alexander Payne, 2023, USA, Colour, English, 133 mins, Certificate: 15

You heard it before: there is the family you are born in, and there is the family you chose.

You only have to be lucky for the former. But for the latter, when you’re choosing your people, you also need to be bold and fearless and rather wise. You have to persevere, look past your prejudices, anxieties and shortcomings. Don’t get seduced by what people say. Trust instead in what they do.

The Oscar winning (for the adapted screenplays of Sideways and The Descendants), Greek-American filmmaker, Alexandre Payne has turned a keen yet tender eye on the tragicomedy of blood families three times before, in About Schmidt, but especially in The Descendants and Nebraska.

In The Holdovers he focuses on the creation of an unconventional, non romantic, chosen family, for the first time. A family of three: a surrogate father, a surrogate son, and a surrogate mother . They meet in the 70s, at a New England boarding school during the Christmas break, when none of them have a “home” to get back to.

The “father” is Paul – the grumpy history teacher that nobody likes. The “son” is Angus – the clever but troublemaking student that had his Christmas plans canceled by his mother and her new husband. And the “mother” is Mary – the head cook of the school, who grieves her own lost in the Vietnam War son.

Their funny and sad, bitter and sweet interactions and misadventures, not only eventually make them as strong a family unit as any. They also thrust them into an irreversible journey of self discovery, that finally gets them unstuck. To boldly go into their future.

All the while, their humanity shines through.

How could it not? Payne always finds, mines and exposes it without funfair, in what is not spoken out loud, in the minute expressions that won’t go unnoticed, and in the quiet, simple gestures that make a difference.

Under his attentive eye Paul Giamatti, as the teacher, gives his 2nd best (after his unforgettable Sideways ride) performance of his career, exploring the #LOL comedy in the tragedy of a life non lived, as he imbues a character that could so easily have been merely a caricature with arresting depth.

Dominic Sessa, as the student, bursts into the spotlight with his screen debut (would you believe it?) as he so eloquently captures the often self-harming, rebellious frustration of adolescence, and its feelings of perpetually being misunderstood and unmoored in the adult world.

And the true to her name, divine Da’Vine Joy Randolfph, as the cook, succeeds in the seemingly impossible: she elevates Mary up to Holly Ghost territory, without ever loosing her firm contact with the ground beneath her feet. This is a resolutely earthbound trinity after all. Deservedly, she was the sole Oscar win (Best Supporting Actress) out of the film’s 5 nominations in the noisy year of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon.

So get into the festive spirit with them, laugh and cry and enjoy their gifts. Plus, when you buy your ticket (on line or at the door) you will be entered into a draw for a chance to win a Kirkdale Bookshop £20 token – an actual Xmas gift!

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