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This message comes from Discover, accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. If you don't think so, maybe it's time to face facts. You're stuck in the past. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report. More at discover.com slash credit card. In the funny, melancholic, and weirdly moving new film, The Holdovers, Paul Giamatti plays a widely disliked teacher at a prestigious boarding school in 1978.
He's forced to look after the boys who can't go home for Christmas break, including one kid who's a particular pain in the butt. It's the latest film from Alexander Payne, who wrote and directed Sideways, Election, Nebraska, and other films. I'm Linda Holmes. And I'm Len Weldon, and today we're talking about The Holdovers on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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Joining us today is Andrew Limbong. He's the host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast and reporter for The Culture Desk. Hey, Andrew. Yo, what's up? What's up? What is up, indeed? Let's get to it. The Holdovers is set in a snooty New England private boys' school in 1970. Paul Giamatti plays Paul Hunnam, the strict curmudgeonly professor of ancient history who is wildly unpopular with the students and the faculty. As the school empties out for Christmas break, he's left to look after a handful of students who were forced to stay on campus through the new year. And he's also
The only other adult around is Mary, the school cook, who's spending her first Christmas without her son, a graduate of the school who was recently killed in Vietnam. She's played by Davine Joy Randolph. One of the students hanging around is Angus, played by newcomer Dominic Sessa. He's a smart but troubled young man who's dealing with the loss of his father and his mother's
Or hasty marriage. Together, these three broken people bicker, bond, and share secrets with each other. It's a lot less sappy than it sounds. Alexander Payne directs a screenplay by David Hemmingsen. The Holdovers is in theaters now. Andrew, kick us off. What'd you make of it?
Okay, listen, I wear blue blazers with brass buttons. I'm wearing them right now. It's true. I wear Oxford cloth button down shirts, you know. This is made in a lab for me. Like all the warm prep school, you know, I don't go to prep school, shout out public school, right? I didn't go to, you know, these like sort of boarding schools. But I love these settings.
Yeah, I loved this. Pain is not always right up my alley, by which I mean Alexander Payne, not Payne the Feeling.
I can find him sometimes so acidic and so arch that it becomes a little bit disconnected for me emotionally. I think there's a generosity to this movie that maybe I don't always get from him. And I think he really uses these actors wonderfully, what becomes kind of this three-hander. I really loved this. And the more I've thought about it and sat with it, kind of the more I've appreciated it.
Well, it's unanimous. I mean, I think this is a Christmas movie for the rest of us. You know, this is like curmudgeons assemble. But given the setup, I mean, I came into this exactly from a different place from Andrew. I was very wary because I had been burned before. Linda, you're not going to hear me go into my dead poet society rant again because I think we can all accept that that movie turned the teaching of history and art into a live-laugh-love refrigerator magnet and it is to be abjured. I watched this film in a defensive crouch.
waiting for it to spill over into rank sentimentality, into lessons learned, because all the ingredients are there, but it never did. And of course it didn't, because even though Payne didn't write the script, he did direct this and
And he is director for me of restraint, of a very clear eyed kind of approach and specificity. So, you know, as you guys mentioned, he finds these moments of emotional connection between his characters. He lets the actors do their work. He lets the writing do their work. You can almost feel him isolating those moments, setting them up and then kind of
Like a dealer in Vegas just kind of clapping his hands and stepping away from the table, right? Yeah. And yes, he is a satirist at heart. I mean, I'm going to push back a little, Linda. For me, he's not the kind of satirist that blisters the wallpaper. But I do agree with you very much that generosity here is the magic word. Everyone in this film gets to look dumb. Everyone gets to look smart. Everyone's a buffoon. Everyone's wise, right?
which is just the way life is. And I think that's why it works. It's funny you say restraint. That's not a word I associate when I watch like election or something. Right. Sure. I think.
I think in some ways election is a little bit of an outlier in terms of the main films that he's done. I think that Glenn is right that he's not the kind of wallpaper-peeling satirist, right? But election kind of is like that. But I don't know that the rest of his work is. You know, there is a kind of gentleness about some of the other films. Nebraska in particular is a pretty gentle work. But this to me, you know, you mentioned Dead Poets when we came out of the screening, Glenn, and I...
I was ready to get into a boxing match with you about that because I think this is kind of the – you had kind of said dead poets if Robin Williams was Paul Giamatti. And to me, this is like the anti-dead poets, right? I had a very good teacher once who told me good teachers want students, not disciples. And this is a students, not disciples movie. It is not about the magnetic correctness.
charisma of a teacher. It sure isn't. Drawing students into the subject matter itself. It's really about, I'm sure I'll come back to this in some lyrical fashion, but it's really to me about grace. It's really about people finding a way to have these moments of grace that come to them in really different ways. But I want to hear about
Andrew's caveats. Yeah. So I saw this interview Payne did talking about the movie. And he said that, you know, he'd originally envisioned this as just the teacher and the boy. And that was like the center of the movie. And then David Hemmings comes in and he says, listen, we got to add like the cook character, which definitely makes the movie more complete. Because if it was just the teacher and the boy, I think it is a dead boat society. Right. But.
But I don't know if she gets enough play compared to the other guys. I've been going back and forth on it. At first, when I walked out of the theater, I was like, I don't know if she really had enough growth, if there was a lot of there there for her. I'm thinking about it now. Yeah. I'm a little bit more generous towards the movie, but I'm still hesitant about it. And I was wondering what you guys thought. No, I hear what you're saying. We call it a three-hander. It's more a two-and-a-half-hander. Yeah. But there is a pitfall, a big pitfall he avoided here. Yeah.
I worried when the movie started that Mary was going to be set up as the kind of sole voice of reason, which would be giving into a different kind of cliche. But she gets to be not as raw and unsteady and real as the two other main characters, but there is a definite effort there. Linda, what do you think? Yeah, I thought about this too. And I mostly came down on the side of being really happy with the way they developed this character. And it's because...
I don't think it's an accident that the first images in this film are of memorials in the school's chapel of young men who died in previous world wars, of whom there are a number, right? And then Mary's son is the only one, apparently, that they have lost in the Vietnam War.
I think it hangs over this film that somewhere between World War II and Vietnam, rich people found a new hack to keep their kids from going to war.
And I think that all of the people in this story live with the tension that's created by that, right? There's a moment when Giamatti, when the teacher is pointing out to Angus, to the kid, they're having a conversation about who does and doesn't die in war or get injured in war. So to me, her wisdom – and this goes back to kind of what I was saying about Grace –
I think of that idea of grace as being at peace with yourself, being at peace with the people that you love, being at peace with your choices and having healthy connections to other people. You know, Giamatti is playing a guy who has never had that over a long, long life.
The kid is playing somebody who's just figuring out what that might look like and how to get there. She is playing somebody who has had that and she has lost it because of the death of her son and now she feels disconnected. To me, her greater understanding is because she's the person who has had healthy relationships before. What I didn't want was her to be imbued with like
deep, natural wisdom of some unnatural kind. But I think what she has instead is she has a different kind of experience than they do. She has experience in close, loving, functional relationships, mostly the relationship with her son and with her family. And that, I think, is what sets her apart from them. So in the end, I felt okay about it.
Yeah, that brings up something I wanted to talk about a little bit more. You pointed it out there. Like in a lot of films like this set in a place like this,
The privilege is not something that's directly addressed all the time. Here it's certainly a factor. It's certainly called out. And I went back and forth and maybe that kind of feels like it calls out in a 2023 way more than a 1970 way. But, you know, the truth is that any period piece would do that. The trick is not to make it obvious. Did that work for you? Yeah. It's not like they played like Fortunate Son.
Right, right.
If they fail, it's not like, oh, Paul Giamatti failed you, you're going to war, like it is for the boy in the movie, right? And so I think the way the class differentials are played out is really thick in a lot of ways and complicated because there's that subplot about how Giamatti stood his ground, or Paul rather stood his ground and failed one of his students who was like a higher-up son, right? And that sort of plays with the whole movie. I was thinking the whole time, I was like,
wait, did you like low key send that kid to war? Not really. The chances of that actually happening aren't happening. It's like, it's not not an option. Yeah. It's always there. And which, which I felt really saved it from being treacly. I will also just say, I think for the purposes of developing these relationships, I also really love the visuals of this movie. We talked about the setting and the school, um,
I really like the way that at the beginning, the school does feel really institutional and it feels kind of cold at the beginning. A sequence I really liked where Angus goes around and explores the school by himself and you get the sense of kind of what it means to him to be able to do that in this kind of like
Like very, very, very slightly transgressive way. And the more that the three of them are there together, the more it becomes more homey. And there's the gigantic dining room where the three of them are eating their meals ultimately really is shot like a family dining room. And they're able to get a very family dinner kind of feel out of it. I really like the way –
that the locations and the look of it are handled. And it's so heavily influenced by the fact that through the vast majority of it, there's snow on the ground outside. So you always have this kind of interestingly bright gray feeling that you get from being around big windows when there's nothing but snow outside. I think it looks great. I really liked how it was edited. Boy, I know we're going to talk about this, but I loved all three of these performances just up, down.
all over. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, let's talk about the vibe of the film, though, because, I mean, that is, you get pops on the soundtrack, you get a graininess in the film, you get all these desaturated colors. So the whole vibe of the movie feels very period-specific because the plot is kind of shaggy, kind of loose. Like a lot of Payne films, it's more character study than, like, this kind of steel trap plotting. And in terms of approach, I mean, I think there's probably a bit of daylight between Payne and somebody like Wes Anderson, but this is like
What if Wes Anderson didn't have to obsessively straighten the fringe on the carpet before he left the house, right? This is definitely a little more of a Wes Anderson-y Alexander Payne movie. That is true. Yeah.
And the soundtrack, I can't speak to the music supervision here, but Cat Stevens, Bad Finger, the Allman Brothers, The Chamber, Shocking Blue, Artie Shaw, kind of that vibe with you guys. At first, it was like a little bit like cosplay. Okay. When that opening shot, you hear the boys singing in the choir. I didn't like read too much into the plot going into the movie, and I didn't know –
if it was supposed to set be set today and like just like look like it was the 70s but like once it settles into itself i think it it you know envelops you and i sort of buy it you know like i gotta say great pipe acting great sig acting you know a lot of those little details i was like oh yeah who's acting yeah a lot of great drink it's like oh some of these people have had experiences you know and which i think sell it what'd you make of the music linda the
The music at the beginning struck me as, I think similar to what Andrew was saying, struck me as a little aggressively inaggressive. It struck me as a little assertively strummy, we might say. And I kind of felt like, okay, I'm choking on my latte here. It's okay. However, I do think as you went along, there's some beautiful music in here. And I think it just goes together with sort of the whole feel of the
of the movie, which I just kind of sunk down into and really just ultimately felt so, it felt so warm to me in a way that I really appreciated. Yeah. I mean, if there hadn't been a Cat Stevens song, I mean,
In this thing. I would have been like, feels like I can't see what's happening. All right. We're going to talk about the performances. Let's take them in turn. Giamatti. I don't think anybody would say that this character is outside of his wheelhouse. And it is reteaming him with pain since Sideways. So this is a lonely, broken man. But this is a much gentler take. Much more sympathetic than Sideways, certainly. What do you guys make of it? Yeah. I think...
In a lot of ways, this did feel like a sequel of sorts to Sideways. He definitely feels more nobility in the role of a high school teacher in this movie. And it feels like even though it like kind of sucks because kids suck and kids are annoying, he takes this job seriously. And you can see him. He's not as hateful as his character in Sideways is to the job, you know, and he definitely like.
really cares about these kids. And I think he's, Giamatti's at a three, a lot more in this movie than I usually ever see him in when he's usually at like a seven or an eight, you know, this mode of Giamatti. But there's a lot of moments where he's like, he's just like toned back and I really appreciated those depths to his performance. Yeah. I think it's really difficult to play a character who has as many unpleasant qualities as this character has, because you have to kind of believe that,
that people, including kind of good and decent people, don't like him. But for the purposes of this particular story, you also have to believe that he has the capacity for, again, for grace. I so wanted that for this character. And I think the way that they move him kind of in the direction of finding that, which is ultimately...
In a way, it sounds so obvious, but I think they make it really lovely that his path to that is to be able to engage in some kind of exchange with other people. Not that it's transactional, but some kind of like emotional exchange with other people. There's a moment...
where there's sort of an emotionally complicated crisis going on. And Angus, the kid, comes and gets Giamatti and brings him to where the problem is. And Giamatti just goes and closes the door to sort of give privacy to this developing situation. And it's this small...
kindness that you sense that maybe a couple of weeks earlier, even maybe he wouldn't have kind of had the clarity to get to, but he's now thinking of himself as partly responsible for these people because now this is like, it's not a subtle thing. This is like a little family and he feels a responsibility. And through that responsibility, he feels that kind of grace. And I think it's so hard to make somebody feel,
Yeah.
Man, so much is riding on this kid, both on screen and off. I mean, this is Cess's first on-camera performance. He plays the kid as kind of an open wound. Andrew, what do you think? There's a way that he holds his body where you can tell he's pretending to be confident. Yeah. The way that he moves, and he looks like a tall kid, and he looks kind of lanky, but there's a way that he just moves around well.
it's definitely kind of like a put on that is so tragic in the teenage boy sort of way that, you know, you got to love it. Absolutely. Yeah. As Andrew mentioned, he's a complete newbie. They found him as the star of his high school theater program, which is like, of course. And also what a great story. I mean, come on, what a great story. That guy who is like the star of your theater program gets discovered and gets to be in an Alexander Payne movie. How many people are heated right now though?
How many people? Just like, oh my God, Dominic. Dominic got it. Got it. But this is like in the same way that you can see that he's faking confidence. What I thought was remarkable about this movie, especially at the beginning, is you go back and forth. If you're used to kind of types in high school movies, you go back and forth between like, oh, so he's a cool kid. No, no, no. He's a dork. There really is this very confused, fake, confident, pretentious,
but also sort of deeply feeling and also a screw up. And it's one of my favorite performances by a new actor to me that I've seen in a really long time. Absolutely. So Davine Joy Randolph, you look at her IMDb page, it's a lot of comedies. Alexander Payne said he was drawn to her
by seeing her performance in Dolomite Is My Name, where she played a very different character. But he said, comic actors have a natural sense of rhythm, and I knew that she would be right for this part. What did you guys think? Yeah, I mean, you definitely need some comic chops to put Paul in his place for this movie, right? And, you know, there's certain reasons why she's the only person he respects, and she can get away with some of that. But I think that has to do with her comic timing. Linda, the scene you mentioned earlier
in that really pivotal emotional moment, I think is my favorite scene in the movie. And, you know, it all rests on her like leading up to it where she's sort of like breaking down slowly. And you can see something is bubbling up and something's about to happen, but you don't quite know what. And when it happens, it's such a...
It's not even sad and tragic. It's just like, it's very normal in a lot of ways. It is. You know, how many times you just like need a minute. And it's like not that big of a deal, but it is a big deal. But you just like need a second to like cool it for a second. Yeah. And she plays that moment so beautifully, I think. That's sort of the most outward manifestation you get of this very painful situation that she's in because she's lost her son. You don't ever get...
The version of that that you might think you're going to get in a movie like this, it's a little bit smaller. It's more contained. It's happening at an inconvenient time in an inconvenient place. And I think in that way, it resonated so much with me because I am a person who will have like a big crying jag in the middle of somebody's party. It's just...
Yeah.
Boy, her instincts are so true. And I think, honestly, when you get a comic actor, one thing that happens is they can keep the comedy a little bit smaller because they're more confident and it can stay really small because she understands it better and she has more experience and she can scale it better. So her performance of the stuff that's really funny...
I think is a little bit more considered than it might have been if you had somebody who's not an experienced comic actor who's trying to put over, you know, comedic, overtly comedic
material, you know? Yeah, this movie stays with you. It stays with all of us in different ways and we want to know what you think about The Holdovers. Find us at facebook.com slash pchh. You think we're going to be talking about this again come Oscar time? I hope so. I hope so, yeah. That brings us to the end of our show. Linda Holmes, Andrew Limbaugh, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, buddy. Thank you. We want to take a moment to thank our Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus subscribers. We appreciate you so much for showing your support of NPR if you have not yet signed up.
and you want to show your support and listen to the show without a single solitary sponsor break, head over to plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathima and edited by Mike Katzeff. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy, of course, and Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we will see you all tomorrow.
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