Failing Grades, Altering Lives
“The Holdovers” takes place at Barton, a fictitious Catholic boarding prep academy on the outskirts of Boston, circa 1969.Not-remotely-eligible bachelor and cantankerous ancient history professor Paul Hunham (Giamatti) is introduced via a cursory glance at his bathroom, most notably the stained sink and the tube of Preparation H sitting on it. Then, we see the rumpled Hunham in his study, smoking a pipe and delightedly muttering the word “Philistines!” while grading papers.
Hunham is suitably tweedy, sweater-vest-y and corduroy-ish for a New England prep school teacher. And stinky. And seriously wall-eyed. Giamatti pulls off being lazy-eyed/wall-eyed so well, I had to Google him and hit “Images” to see if I’d been missing something all these years. I hadn’t. Mr. Giamatti’s eyes are, in fact, quite normal.
When one of the many privileged, entitled students protests his abysmal grade, explaining that it’ll ruin his chances of getting into Cornell, Hunham relents. How? By telling the student body that they’re welcome to re-test after Christmas break, necessitating prodigious study during the time students expect to be opening presents, accompanied by hot chocolate, and schussing the pistes with their families at swanky ski resorts.
Christmas Break
Five kids stay. Four because they have to, and the football quarterback because he’s having a test of wills with his dad, who tells his son he can’t come home with that long hair. Said jock proudly claims he’s doing his part for “civil disobedience.” Surprise, surprise—rich dad caves, shows up in the family private helicopter, and whisks all the boys off to enjoy the powdery slopes at Haystack Mountain. That is—all but one.Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a rebellious, miserable, and angry kid, was hoping to go to Saint Kitts with mom and her new hubby. But mom schedules her overdue honeymoon instead. And so Tully’s stuck roaming the halls of the unheated school.
Besides Hunham, whom Tully hates with a passion, the only other souls are two staffers: the janitor/maintenance man Danny (Naheem Garcia) and the placid but acerbic, corpulent cook Mary Lamb (Da’vine Joy Randolph), who’s quietly grief-stricken. This is Mary’s first Christmas without her son Curtis, one of Barton’s very few black graduates (her job paid for his tuition) who’s been killed in Vietnam.
Thus, Hunham, Mary (who remains to cook leftovers until supplies arrive post-break), and Tully form an unlikely trinity. Like Hunham, Mary lives on campus. At night, she watches “The Newlywed Game” and imbibes whiskey. Hunham—like Giamatti’s character in “Sideways,” a functioning alcoholic—joins her for some late-night Jim Beam tippling.
Third Act
Hunham ends up driving Tully and Mary to Boston, Mary to visit her pregnant sister (Juanita Pearl), who lives in Roxbury, and Tully also to visit a relative.
Tully and Hunham attend a Christmas Eve party thrown by Barton’s secretary (Carrie Preston). Tully gets to kiss a girl (Darby Lee-Stack).
Tully and Hunham also take an excursion to the Museum of Fine Arts, and Tully informs his teacher that if Hunham would just do some field trips like this, and explain history via art pieces that depict ancient libido-driven forms, he might gain some much-needed respect.
They get to know each other; we learn why Hunham stinks and which eye is the roving one, with instructions as to which eye to talk to when addressing Hunham (because it’s very confusing). They share secrets that are strictly “entre nous.”
“The Holdovers” does end up making you care for its variously damaged miscreants, who discover their true capacity to care for one another. It’s a holiday movie, but not the manufactured Hallmark kind that we’re used to at this time of the year, which is refreshing.
However, the two-hour-plus running time is excessive, and since much of the story is about depressed people, it’s a bit depressing overall. Still, it’s always nice to see people overcome their initial differences, let their guards down, and come to discover that they have more in common than they previously thought.
Giamatti is always in danger of scoring an Oscar, and here it’s no different. But Randolph breathes full life into her minimal role, and if she gets an Oscar nomination—and not due to Hollywood politics of being a minority—it'll be well deserved.
