The Holdovers

2023 • 133 minutes

About this movie

From acclaimed director Alexander Payne, The Holdovers follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them - a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) - and with the school's head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da'Vine Joy Randolph).

Ratings and reviews

Curmudgeonly teacher encounters troubled student. They don't get along at first, but....well I won't spoil it but you can probably guess how it goes. The movie was okay, but a few too many cliches and tropes for me. Major eye roll not even ten minutes in when the headmaster says to Paul's character, when giving him the task of watching over the group of boys during the break, "At least pretend to be a human being. Please. It's Christmas."

Me gustó mucho la película The Holdovers, porque me pareció una obra divertida, emotiva y original. Creo que la película logra captar el ambiente de los años 70, tanto en el aspecto visual como en el musical. Me gustó cómo la película combina el humor con el drama, y cómo crea unos personajes que son reales y entrañables. Me pareció que los actores hicieron un gran trabajo, especialmente Paul Giamatti, que interpreta al profesor de historia con mucha gracia y profundidad.

Excellent performances by Giamatti and Sessa. Preston also really good with the screen time she had. Vivid look into private school world. Camera work and sound top, notch. Antagonists fell flat. Plot twists toward the end felt forced, some of dialogue, again toward the end, unnatural. Overall worthwhile movie, but I do not agree with the 96% score.