The holidays can be hard. They are frequently hectic with activities, expensive, and laden with high expectations. And those are the difficulties born of abundance. They holidays are also difficult for those experiencing absence. Illness, abandonment, failure, loneliness, loss – these pains smart with increased intensity during the holidays. We are told by every commercial on the radio to be joyous and at peace, which can make us extra aware of the ways we are not.
The Holdovers, Alexander Payne’s new film, is sensitive to those Christmas difficulties born of absence. The story concerns a trio forced for various reasons to stay behind at an elite, all-male boarding school for the Christmas holiday. The trio is played beautifully by Paul Giamatti, Dominick Tessa, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. With no one but each other to lean on, they find consolation for their respective sufferings in the stubbornly-crossed arms of each other.
This is a Alexander Payne film—the first new one from the director who gave us Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants, Nebraska, and Downsizing since 2017—so we can expect a healthy shake of cynicism and dollop of melancholy to season the proceedings. And we can look forward to a hearty sense of humor as well. Compared to his other films, The Holdovers is surprisingly warm. The cynicism and melancholy are still there, but they are suspended in a 1970s, Hal Ashby-esque tradition of character-driven plots that acknowledge heartache while toasting the gift of finding people who understand you better even than your relatives. (If Hal Ashby isn’t a name that means anything to you, think of A Charlie Brown Christmas. They are cousins. It’s just that one sits at the kids’ table and one dines with the grownups, ruefully)
The Holdovers is the kind of movie that knows coming-of-age is a lifelong process that we repeat each time we need to integrate some new loss into our lives. Confronted with loss during the holidays, as many of us are, they are a season of great potential integration and growth. During these longest, darkest nights of the year, we seek joy. There is much joy in The Holdovers. Joy is not the skipping levity of springtime. Joy is the kind of happiness that persists through difficulty, a fire smoldering in a fireplace in a cold, cavernous room. The Holdovers seeks and finds that kind of happiness.
The Holdovers is a wonderful Christmas film. I predict it will become a regular holiday guest for many. It will for me.
The holidays can be hard. They are frequently hectic with activities, expensive, and laden with high expectations. And those are the difficulties born of abundance. They holidays are also difficult for those experiencing absence. Illness, abandonment, failure, loneliness, loss – these pains smart with increased intensity during the holidays. We are told by every commercial on the radio to be joyous and at peace, which can make us extra aware of the ways we are not.
The Holdovers, Alexander Payne’s new film, is sensitive to those Christmas difficulties born of absence. The story concerns a trio forced for various reasons to stay behind at an elite, all-male boarding school for the Christmas holiday. The trio is played beautifully by Paul Giamatti, Dominick Tessa, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. With no one but each other to lean on, they find consolation for their respective sufferings in the stubbornly-crossed arms of each other.
This is a Alexander Payne film—the first new one from the director who gave us Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants, Nebraska, and Downsizing since 2017—so we can expect a healthy shake of cynicism and dollop of melancholy to season the proceedings. And we can look forward to a hearty sense of humor as well. Compared to his other films, The Holdovers is surprisingly warm. The cynicism and melancholy are still there, but they are suspended in a 1970s, Hal Ashby-esque tradition of character-driven plots that acknowledge heartache while toasting the gift of finding people who understand you better even than your relatives. (If Hal Ashby isn’t a name that means anything to you, think of A Charlie Brown Christmas. They are cousins. It’s just that one sits at the kids’ table and one dines with the grownups, ruefully)
The Holdovers is the kind of movie that knows coming-of-age is a lifelong process that we repeat each time we need to integrate some new loss into our lives. Confronted with loss during the holidays, as many of us are, they are a season of great potential integration and growth. During these longest, darkest nights of the year, we seek joy. There is much joy in The Holdovers. Joy is not the skipping levity of springtime. Joy is the kind of happiness that persists through difficulty, a fire smoldering in a fireplace in a cold, cavernous room. The Holdovers seeks and finds that kind of happiness.
The Holdovers is a wonderful Christmas film. I predict it will become a regular holiday guest for many. It will for me.
Elijah Davidson is Co-Director of Brehm Film and Senior Film Critic. Subscribe to Come & See, his weekly newsletter that guides you through the greatest films ever made, and find more of his work at elijahdavidson.com.
