The Review
A permanently cranky history teacher, who is a stickler for rules, at a private boys boarding school gets stuck with a troubled student who has no place to go over the holidays.
The Holdovers is wonderfully cast, with excellent writing and lots of character growth.
It’s an initially unassuming, meandering Christmas movie that draws you in with laughs and feels, mirroring the complexity of life, personal growth and the value of connections we make at work + lots of facts from history!
The Press Release
A new film by Alexander Payne, director of SIDEWAYS and THE DESCENDANTS. Paul Giamatti stars in THE HOLDOVERS, in select theaters October 27, everywhere November 10. Director: Alexander Payne Starring: Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa
THE HOLDOVERS reunites Sideways alums Paul Giamatti and director Alexander Payne in a Christmas story of three lonely, shipwrecked people at a New England boarding school over a very snowy holiday break in 1970. The comedy stars Giamatti as Paul Hunham, an odiferous, optically-challenged adjunct professor of ancient history who is universally disliked by students and faculty; Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb, the head cook of the school whose only child Curtis was killed in Vietnam, and Dominic Sessa, in his film debut, as Angus Tully, a student at the school - a smart, damaged, troublemaker but a good kid underneath who’s just trying to make his way. Left to their own devices in the empty school, there are adventures, a little calamity and finally, a semblance of family.