3.5 stars out of 5
You can go see this movie or, just watch the trailer, as there isn’t too much difference. Meet Paul Giamatti; he’s a curmudgeonly teacher! Now meet a bunch of students left behind over winter break at a fancy school — and Giamatti has to oversee them! Throw in the cafeteria lady, and they’ll form hard-won, unlikely friendships!
The basic idea reminded me a little of Unaccompanied Minors, which I watched a lot of on cable one lazy day and recall kind of enjoying. And Alexander Payne directed this, so I thought maybe he’d turn the feel-good trailer into something special. However, Payne generally does his best work when he also writes the movie, and this time he did not. That honor went to TV writer David Hemingson.
Giamatti could play this role in his sleep; alas he doesn’t go above-and-beyond that. The lead student is newcomer Dominic Sessa, who shows he’s able to play both edgy and wounded. And Da’Vine Joy Randolph is the down-to-earth cafeteria manager who slowly reveals her own pain.
Loss and abandonment are recurring themes here, and while I’ll give Hemingson credit for subverting some clichés, I do feel he tried to shoehorn too much drama into the script, and wasn’t able to resolve it all effectively.
Still, it’s a nice wintry setting in the earliest 1970s (kudos to the opening credits design), with some decent light humor much of the way through. So if you want to see this in the theater, hurry up, as I can’t imagine The Holdovers will be held over for very long.
Jack Silbert, curator