THE HOLDOVERS (2023) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Alexander Payne
Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da'Vine Jay Randolph,
Carrie Preston, Andrew Garman, Naheem Garcia,
Brady Hepner, Stephen Thorne, Michael Provost,
Gilliam Vigman, Tate Donovan, Darby Lee-Stack
In a snowbound December in 1970, a cook, a part-time janitor, a teacher and a handful of kids with nowhere to go get stuck with each other at a boys' boarding school over Christmas break. You can guess how a setup like this will play out, and some of it does. But David Henningson's script repeatedly steers your expectations in one direction and then takes you somewhere else. It's beautifully acted and often funny, heartfelt without being too sentimental, and the bittersweet conclusion does not resolve everybody's problems and tie it all up with a bow. And it's a time capsule. Whether or not you're old enough to remember 1970, watch the first ten minutes of this and you're there.
