The Holdovers: A Review - A Happy Humbug for the Holidays

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. Not a great film, but a good enough one. It’s an exceedingly safe movie that boasts quality performances from a terrific cast.

The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne and starring Paul Giamatti, tells the story of a teacher, student and cook who are stuck together at a tony New England prep school over the Christmas holiday break in 1970.

I consider myself a marginal fan of director Alexander Payne. I’ve loved some of his movies, like About Schmidt and Nebraska. I’ve liked some of his movies, like Sideways and Election. And I’ve loathed some of his movies, like Downsizing and The Descendants.

The Holdovers, Payne’s first film since the box office and critical bomb Downsizing in 2017, was in theatres at the end of October and is now streaming on Peacock.

The film, set at the fictional prep school Barton, tells the story of Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a stern and curmudgeonly academic who attended the school in his youth and has taught there for the vast majority of his adulthood.

Hunham is just like Robin Williams’ iconic character John Keating in Dead Poets Society…if Keating had a wall-eye, bad body odor and was despised by both students and colleagues alike. Hunham’s students would only stand and recite “O Captain! My Captain!” if they were about to frag him.

Hunham is, much to his chagrin, tasked with taking care of a rag tag group of students who, for a variety of reasons, have nowhere to go over the Christmas break. One of these students, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), is abandoned at the lasty minute by his mother and step-father for the holidays.

After a twist and turn of events, the only people left at Barton for holiday break are the sad-sack trio of Hunham, Tully, and the school’s head chef Mary Lamb (DaVine Joy Randolph). The one thing these three all have in common though is that they’re all in various stages of grief, such as denial, anger and depression.

The tone throughout The Holdovers is one of melancholy mixed with a cloying sentimentality. Yes, there are some amusing bits and sequences, and Giamatti’s Harvard educated Hunham has a quick, erudite and eviscerating wit, but for the most part this is a straight forward, throw-back, adult dramedy.

The Holdovers is a return to scale if not entirely to form for Alexander Payne. I thought the film was…fine. It isn’t great. But it is good…enough. It is proficiently made, well-acted, and entertaining. But what it lacks is…well…some sense of profundity, as it is incessantly safe above all else.

This is the type of film that would be perfect to sit down with extended family during the holidays and watch without anyone getting offended or upset or even all that excited. It is, as I said, above all else - safe…but it’s also entertaining and kept me captivated for its full two-hour-and-thirteen-minute running time.

The performances from the three main characters are all noteworthy. Giamatti, one of our better actors, is terrific as Hunham. The dialogue for Hunham is very well-written by screenwriter David Hemingson and is expertly delivered by Giamatti. Giamatti is very comfortable in the discomfort felt by the irascible egghead with the literal googly-eyes who smells like fish. He trudges through Hunham’s dramatic odyssey with his usual aplomb.

Dominic Sessa is a discovery as Angus Tully. This is Sessa’s first movie and while he is a bit rough-around-the-edges he brings a vitality and adolescent angst that is impossible to fake.

The big revelation though is Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb. Randolph’s character Mary is the least well-written, but she fills the spaces with a weight that speaks volumes. What impressed me the most about Randolph though is that she absolutely, but subtly, nails her Boston accent, which is something that such luminaries as Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson and Julianne Moore have embarrassingly butchered (Hanks on multiple occasions).

When I have loved Alexander Payne’s films, like About Schmidt and Nebraska, it’s because they have had an acerbic and wickedly cutting and subversive nature to them. It also helps that those films star Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern respectively, giving some of the best performances of their careers.

When Payne loses me is when sentimentality and shtick come to the fore, like in The Descendants and Downsizing. (I also thought George Clooney and Matt Damon, respectively, were actively awful in both of those movies)

The Holdovers has a mix of both the best and the worst of Payne. It’s filled with sentimentality, but also features a great actor, Giamatti, swimming in a thick sea of acerbity (much like he did in Sideways).

It also has some shticky moments that disappoint and irritate. Like when Hunham chases Tully through the school, which was very reminiscent of a dreadfully bad sequence in The Descendants where George Clooney goofily runs up and down a long winding road.

But despite those contrived moments and disappointing bits, I found myself buying in to The Holdovers almost entirely because this type of movie – a smart, adult dramedy, which used to be so common in the 1970’s, is so rare nowadays.

Well-written, well-acted small comedy-dramas made by quality directors featuring skilled performers, are unfortunately few and far between in today’s Hollywood. Which is maybe why The Holdovers is being so well-received by critics and audiences alike.

If you have Peacock, I definitely recommend you watch The Holdovers, and if you don’t have Peacock, they’re always having one-week free trials so sign up for a free week and watch the movie and then cancel.

Ultimately, I enjoyed The Holdovers despite its various shortcomings and lack of artistic ambition, and frankly, I think you will too. It’s a safe movie and it definitely won’t change your life…but it also won’t disappoint.

 Follow me on twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Downsizing: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. No need to ever see this movie. 

Downsizing, written and directed by Alexander Payne, is the story of Paul Safranek, a midwestern physical therapist who chooses to undergo a new procedure that will shrink him down to being only five inches tall in order to start a new life in an experimental, eco-friendly mini-world. The film stars Matt Damon with supporting performances from Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau and Kristen Wiig. 

Downsizing is one of those movies that is rife with possibilities, but in execution ends up being  a disaster. Alexander Payne can be hit or miss for me as a director, for instance I loved About Schmidt, and was lukewarm about Sideways and Nebraska and loathed The Descendants. Downsizing falls into the frustrating The Descendants category in the Alexander Payne catalogue for me. 

What is so troubling about Downsizing is that the original idea, about shrinking people down in order save the environment, is bursting with a myriad of dramatic potential and yet not only does Payne not realize these possibilities, he seems to be entirely oblivious of them. Payne suffocates the creative prospects of the premise in its crib and instead churns out a very blasé, bland and boring product that is bungled from start to finish. 

While Downsizing portends to be an important "issues" film, the movie labors under the strain of its own delusional sense of self-importance. The film never actually tackles any difficult subjects, only strikes a concerned pose and then walks away. Like a eunuch in a whorehouse, Payne only seems to be vaguely aware of what he is missing. 

For instance, the first thing that comes to mind for me is the idea that if people shrink themselves, they immediately become vulnerable to the Tyranny of the Big. Once people are shrunk, Big people could crush little people and their worlds with little effort at all. The result of that would be that little people become entirely reliant on the kindness of the big for their survival. To me it would be fascinating to investigate in Downsizing the idea of people choosing to make themselves weaker and subservient to a giant class of humans. That sounds like a metaphor for people's relationship with Big Tech like Facebook, and their acquiescence to massive surveillance programs. To explore the theme of "if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide", would be an interesting one, but Payne never even contemplates it. 

The Tyranny of the Big theme also could've have been used to explore political issues staring all of us in the face…like American empire, or authoritarianism rising across the globe. But Payne chooses to make a limp non-point by having the "shrinking" technology used by only one government for nefarious reasons…that government…Vietnam. A plot point in the movie is that Vietnam, of all countries, shrinks a group of protestors. Why Vietnam? Of all the countries you could use to show authoritarianism in the world you choose Vietnam? 

The reality is that Payne chose Vietnam because it is a safe choice, not because it is a relevant or interesting one. Vietnam is a "communist" country, and Payne knew he'd get no pushback from anyone, especially here in America, by attacking them. If Payne had any balls…which it is very obvious he doesn't, he would've used China instead of Vietnam. Calling out China as authoritarian by having a storyline where they "shrink" some Tibetan human rights protestors would be a gutsy and dramatically interesting thing to do, but Payne would never do that because China is a market where he wants his movie to play and make money. So China is a no go. The U.S. is another no go for the same obvious reason, calling out American empire is a non-starter for a milquetoast filmmaker like Payne. How about Israel? Why not have Israel "shrink" down Palestinians protestors in order to be able to reduce Palestinians in the West Bank to living in a shoe box so Israeli's can take even more of their land? Payne would never, ever, ever do that because…well…you and I both know why that would never happen.

The lack of testicular fortitude on the part of the director is not the only issue with the film. Downsizing suffers from some of the most basic of filmmaking and storytelling errors imaginable. For instance, there is scene near the end of the film where a bible is used as a critical dramatic device, the problem with that, is that is literally the first time that bible has ever appeared or been mentioned in the entire film…it is a bizarre and glaring bit of amateurish filmmaking. Structurally the film is no better,  as the movie is so fundamentally flawed it teeters the whole time you watch it until it ultimately collapses onto itself. 

The acting is also uneven and disconnected as well. Matt Damon is a fine actor, but he never feels genuinely connected to the material or the character and instead appears to be going through the motions. I read that Paul Giamatti was originally supposed to play the lead role but for some reason was replaced by Damon. I think Giamatti would have been a far superior choice to embody the sad sack character of Paul Safranek. 

Christoph Waltz is an actor I admire, but his character is so poorly written he is entirely incoherent. What Waltz's Dusan Mirkovic is even doing in the film is beyond me, and it seems, beyond him as well. 

Hong Chau's character Ngoc Lan Tran, is difficult to watch. Chau does a good job acting, in fact she delivers a flawless monologue at a dining room table that is worth seeing, but her pidgin English is unbearable and the character feels more like comic relief than a fully fledged human being. Having an Asian character speaking pidgin English used as comedy comes across as terribly tone deaf and at best uncomfortable, and at worst incredibly racist. 

Downsizing's running time is two hours and fifteen minutes, yet the movie feels unconscionably much longer. By the time the final act of the movie begins I could not have cared less about any of the characters involved at all. Everything seemed forced and manufactured and totally devoid of any genuine human emotion or understanding. 

Downsizing boasts a top-notch cast and an intriguing premise but fails to properly utilize either of those things. Alexander Payne's failures as a director and writer scuttle what could have been a truly fascinating ship, and instead we are reduced to watching the equivalent of no one of interest floating on a dingy in a kiddy pool.  

Downsizing is so insignificant and unremarkable that even though I saw it for free while sitting in my living room, I still almost got up and walked out. The only thing Downsizing did was downsize my patience for this stupid movie…oh and hopefully it also downsized Alexander Payne's cache in the film industry. My recommendation is that you skip Downsizing, there is absolutely no need whatsoever for you to see this film at anytime or anyplace. If you stumble across it on cable late one night, turn the television off and go watch a dog take a dump on a dollhouse, it will be time better spent than watching this miniature mess. 

©2017