Christmas 1971, do you know where your Prep students are? More importantly, do you care? And have you ever seen a Prep school tirade become a buddy pic? Well, there’s a first time for everything … even in 1971.
Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is that teacher. Technically a professor of Ancient Civilizations, Mr. Hunham has become the teacher nobody wants. He’s a tough grader, a nitpicker, an impossible standards bearer, one who seems to wield authority for the sake of authority, and completely unsympathetic to the plight of anyone who hasn’t had it at least as rough as he has. That includes every student in Barton Academy. Also, this is his life. So believe me when I say that when he hands out an F+ the day before school break and expects you to spend your vacation studying, well, he’s got nothing better to do than enforce it.
And he’s cranky to boot because he isn’t getting a vacation, either.
There are several boys who don’t get to enjoy the winter break at home and Mr. Hunham has to babysit them. And despite the pre-existing injustice of the kids missing out on whatever perks they enjoy in their family houses, the school is even worse than one imagines. The Holdovers –the boys who did not get an invite home for Christmas break- have to -in order to save the school money- share one room together, consume whatever leftovers remain in the school stores, plus study and exercise all at the foot of the most sadistic teacher in the school, who -btw- doesn’t want to be there, either. Fun, huh?
Thank goodness the boys get along, huh? Oh. Never mind.
After bearing a week if this insanity, the snotty kid sends for a helicopter to take everybody on an extended ski trip. Well, that will make a lot of kids happy. Except one. Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a kid who seems to have a permanent black eye and a chip on his shoulder, can’t reach his paren
ts for permission. Now, the school is empty except for Angus, Mr. Hunham, and the school cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). And though Angus has the look and body of an adult, only the other two get to drink alcohol. This is so many shades of messed up.
But now we have a film. Because it’s no longer the kids against an ogre or the kids coping with desertion and perceived punishment issues; this film is about one adult-ish kid and one burned out teacher. It’s hard to say when one begins to like this film. The set-up takes a while and I guarantee you’ll feel no positive emotions initially for Mr. Hunham unless you, too, are a burned-out ogre who loathes the snotty kids surrounding him. And it also takes a while to warm to Angus, who has good instincts, but comes off initially as just another snotty Prep school jerk, albeit of a slightly different flavor.
Lacking for any other possible tormentors, Angus Tully and Paul Hunham are forced to relate, and when they do, this film becomes a true gem. The Holdovers bears similarity to Dead Poets Society – a remote New England boarding school with a teacher forming a bond with a student. But that comparison is a little off. I could only sympathize with the kids from Dead Poets Society when I was their age. The two leads here, as Mary, have all been beaten up a little by life. We start seeing any initial prickliness through a different lens. It probably took me a full hour of screen time to get behind these guys together; the wait was worth it. The Holdovers is not only an unlikely buddy pic, but an extremely satisfying film and one of my favorites for 2023.
A professor of Ancient Civ
Hadn’t two shits to give
Yet when forced to sequester
In between the semester
He discovered again how to live
Rated R, 133 Minutes
Director: Alexander Payne
Writer: David Hemingson
Genre: School sucks
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Anybody who has ever had to make the best out of a bad situation
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Prep school administrators
