The Holdovers
starring Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph
written by David Heningson
directed by Alexander Payne
Rating: ♦♦♦♦◊
It’s Christmas time, 1970. Set at Barton Academy boarding school, a prestigious private boys’ school. Paul Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a classics teacher, assigned to oversee a group of boys who, for one reason or another, cannot go home for the year-end holidays, and must spend the time on campus, supervised and chaperoned. It’s a dreary bummer for the small group of boys as well as for Mr. Hunham, and for the school’s cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the only adults left on the scene. Everyone leaves, and this small group is both deserted and rather isolated, as well.
Mr. Hunham is strict and harsh, and displays a general dislike for students. The students reciprocate. In addition, Mr. Hunham is in conflict with the school’s Headmaster, who blames him for losing a major donor after Mr. Hunham failed his son, threatening his admission to a prestigious university. Mr. Hunham’s dislike of students extends to the Headmaster, who is a former student.
The 70s were a hideous, grotesque time of bad music, bad clothes, bad hair and ugly cars.
The story centers on Mr. Hunham’s evolving relationship with one boy, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), who is in the midst of extreme adolescent rebellion after being left at the school by his mother on short notice. In Angus Tully, everything comes to a head: hate for Mr. Hunham, hate for his mother’s new husband, disappointment at being denied a promised tropical vacation, animosity with his classmates, grief for his biological father who is in a Boston-area sanitarium, etc.
Their relationship evolved. By the end of the film, when school resumes in January 1971, Angus’ parents visit the school with plans to remove him and enroll him in a military academy. Mr. Hunham stands up for the boy and is fired.
The film has a very 1970s look and feel to it. I grew up in the 1970s, so it was weirdly déjà vu. I even attended an all-boys private school (not a boarding school), with mandatory Latin and Music classes, and daily chapel services. It’s so 1970s that’s is almost nauseating. The 70s were a hideous, grotesque time of bad music, bad clothes, bad hair and ugly cars.
There is a real Barton Academy in the State of Alabama. But the Barton in this film is in New England, and much of the filming took place in Boston and other Massachusetts locations. Many of Baton’s interior (classroom) and exterior (campus, chapel, school buildings and halls) shots were filmed at real Massachusetts upper class schools - places like Groton, Fairhaven High School, Deerfield Academy, Northfield Mount Hermon and St. Mark’s School.