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The Holdovers Movie Review

The Holdovers is a 2023 dramedy film directed by Alexander Payne and starring Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa. It’s an old-fashioned, charming flick.

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“Life is like a hen house ladder. Shitty and short“

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A cranky history teacher at a remote prep school is forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a troubled student who has no place to go. This movie is regarded as one of the best Alexander Payne movies, but I still find his greatest films better than this one as it simply cannot compare to the likes of ‘Election’, ‘Nebraska’ and ‘About Schmidt’.

In what was quite an interesting move, Payne decided to make a 70s dramedy not just visually, but also in subject matter and overall tone and feel. It just might be an instant Christmas classic, but I dislike holidays personally, so it didn’t work for me as well as it did for others. The screenplay was too slight to make a bigger impact.

The best reason to see this movie is for the characters and excellent performances. Da’Vine Joy Randolph got the most praise out of this cast, but although she is very good and her character quite likable, she got the smallest role and she ended up being the only underdeveloped character of the three. They should have done much more with her.

Paul Giamatti was perfectly cast as this clumsy and disillusioned but still somehow optimistic teacher. This character is familiar for Hollywood, but he worked this time around as Giamatti performed him so well and the character was quite well developed. As for Dominic Sessa, he is a promising young actor as his turn here is surprisingly terrific and confident.

The highlight of The Holdovers is the friendship that develops between these two. It all leads to that heartfelt handshake at the end that was the most emotional and effective moment in the story. The movie deals with some serious issues as all characters have very tragic pasts, but the film’s rather comedic and lightweight tone prevented it from exploring those themes in depth.

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The first act did not appeal to me as the movie failed to find its footing until the second act. This is where the focus on our main characters was finally established and the film became more confident in its storytelling. The movie is so well shot, charming in its atmosphere and quite touching at times. The humorous scenes largely worked and so did the more emotional ones , but the overall screenplay felt too safe and too familiar.