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The Holdovers
The star and director of Sideways are reunited for a warm and slightly edgy comedy-drama called The Holdovers that provides solid entertainment despite a screenplay that definitely could have used some tightening.
The film takes place during Christmas of 1969 at a small prep school where we meet three characters who find themselves remaining on the campus while everyone else has gone home for the holidays: Professor Hunhum is the stuffy and intensely disliked history teacher who has no life or family and was going to stay on campus anyway; Angus Tully is an intelligent but lonely senior who has been kicked out of three previous schools and faces military school if he gets kicked out of this one; Mary Lamb is the cafeteria manager who recently lost her son in Vietnam.
First of all, a shout out to screenwriter David Hemingson for the way he let us know when the film took place. Angus is seen packing to go home and he explains to a classmate that a pair of underwear he has is an exact duplicate of a pair that George Lazenby wore in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Backstory is efficiently provided for the three principals, but the film is slowed down when four other students are scheduled to stay on campus, set up some friction with each other, and then they are all conveniently sent from the school, leaving the Professor, Angus, and Mary alone on the campus, which is where the film kicks into gear, but Hemingson could have saved us about twenty minutes of running time if he had sent those other four students home with everyone else.
Professor Hunham and Angus Tully are classic film archetypes...Humham is the teacher whose entire life is his work and doesn't give a daman if all of his students hate him and Angus is the gifted loner, feeling unloved by his family and the butt of his classmates jokes. The expected meltdown between these two does happen because some juicy plot twists do develop during the second half of the film, but they do take a little too long to materialize. Didn't understand Mary's temporary removal from the story only to return her to the story about 15 minutes later, but the final fifteen minutes of the film almost ignited the tear ducts.
The film has been nominated for three Golden Globes. including Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. Director Alexander Payne gets the same kind of blistering performance out of Paul Giamatti as the professor he got out of him in Sideways and most likely get him the Oscar nomination for Best Actor that he should have gotten for Sideways. Dominic Sessa makes a superb film debut as young Angus Tully and Da'Vine Joy Randolph's Mary has also earned her an Globe nomination. It's a little longer than it needs to be, but it's richly entertaining, thanks primarily to an Oscar-worthy performance from Paul Giamatti.
The star and director of Sideways are reunited for a warm and slightly edgy comedy-drama called The Holdovers that provides solid entertainment despite a screenplay that definitely could have used some tightening.
The film takes place during Christmas of 1969 at a small prep school where we meet three characters who find themselves remaining on the campus while everyone else has gone home for the holidays: Professor Hunhum is the stuffy and intensely disliked history teacher who has no life or family and was going to stay on campus anyway; Angus Tully is an intelligent but lonely senior who has been kicked out of three previous schools and faces military school if he gets kicked out of this one; Mary Lamb is the cafeteria manager who recently lost her son in Vietnam.
First of all, a shout out to screenwriter David Hemingson for the way he let us know when the film took place. Angus is seen packing to go home and he explains to a classmate that a pair of underwear he has is an exact duplicate of a pair that George Lazenby wore in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Backstory is efficiently provided for the three principals, but the film is slowed down when four other students are scheduled to stay on campus, set up some friction with each other, and then they are all conveniently sent from the school, leaving the Professor, Angus, and Mary alone on the campus, which is where the film kicks into gear, but Hemingson could have saved us about twenty minutes of running time if he had sent those other four students home with everyone else.
Professor Hunham and Angus Tully are classic film archetypes...Humham is the teacher whose entire life is his work and doesn't give a daman if all of his students hate him and Angus is the gifted loner, feeling unloved by his family and the butt of his classmates jokes. The expected meltdown between these two does happen because some juicy plot twists do develop during the second half of the film, but they do take a little too long to materialize. Didn't understand Mary's temporary removal from the story only to return her to the story about 15 minutes later, but the final fifteen minutes of the film almost ignited the tear ducts.
The film has been nominated for three Golden Globes. including Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. Director Alexander Payne gets the same kind of blistering performance out of Paul Giamatti as the professor he got out of him in Sideways and most likely get him the Oscar nomination for Best Actor that he should have gotten for Sideways. Dominic Sessa makes a superb film debut as young Angus Tully and Da'Vine Joy Randolph's Mary has also earned her an Globe nomination. It's a little longer than it needs to be, but it's richly entertaining, thanks primarily to an Oscar-worthy performance from Paul Giamatti.