The Holdovers

Barton Academy, a staid New England boys' school, empties out for Christmas 1970, leaving behind a handful of students with nowhere to go. The unlucky chaperone is Paul Hunham, a classics professor whose glass eye and acid tongue have made him a campus pariah. Paul Giamatti plays Hunham with a perfect blend of bluster and buried sorrow, a man who has long accepted his role as the school's resident grouch. When wealthy, troubled student Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) gets abandoned by his family at the last minute, he joins the small band of "holdovers" under Hunham's reluctant watch.

Director Alexander Payne, returning to the wry humanism of his early work, sets this story against a backdrop of snow-dusted quads and wood-paneled libraries. The film's third central figure is Mary Lamb, the school's head cook, played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph in a performance that anchors the movie's grief. Mary's son, a Barton graduate, was killed in Vietnam, and she moves through the holidays in a fog of loss. The three of them, a bitter professor, an angry teenager, and a mourning mother, spend the break in forced proximity, and what begins as mutual irritation slowly thaws into something like family.

Shot on location at five Massachusetts prep schools, The Holdovers captures a specific time and place with loving detail. The film cost just $13 million to make and went on to gross over $42 million worldwide, a rare win for mid-budget adult drama. It earned five Academy Award nominations, with Randolph taking home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Payne has called it his tribute to the 1970s movies he grew up on, and the influence of Hal Ashby and Robert Altman is everywhere, from the grainy film stock to the period-perfect soundtrack of Cat Stevens and The Allman Brothers Band. [edit]

December 1970. Barton Academy, a prestigious all-male boarding school in Massachusetts, is winding down for Christmas break. Most boys head home to their families, but a small group remains: Teddy Kountze, Jason Smith, Alex Ollerman, Ye-Joon Park, and Angus Tully. They are the holdovers, students whose parents either can't or won't pick them up. The task of supervising them falls to Paul Hunham, a classics professor who attended Barton on scholarship and has taught there ever since. Hunham is universally disliked, known for his brutal grading, his refusal to flatter wealthy parents, and his habit of drinking cheap scotch alone in his office. His latest offense: failing the son of a major donor, which cost the boy his Princeton admission and earned Hunham the enmity of the headmaster, Dr. Hardy Woodrup, a former student of his.

Angus Tully is the last to arrive, dropped off by his mother and stepfather, who are off on a belated honeymoon. Angus is brilliant but volatile, with a smart mouth and a chip on his shoulder. He received the only B+ in Hunham's class, which he wears like a badge of honor, but he and Hunham clash almost immediately. The other boys are picked up one by one, leaving Angus alone with Hunham for the remainder of the break. Also on campus is Mary Lamb, the head cook, who has stayed behind out of a mix of duty and despair. Her son Curtis, a Barton graduate, was killed in Vietnam, and she finds herself unable to go home to a house full of memories.

The three of them form an uneasy trio. Mary, who has been drinking to dull her pain, persuades Hunham to take Angus on a day trip to Boston. There, Angus and Hunham skate on a frozen pond, visit the Museum of Fine Arts, and eat Chinese food. Hunham runs into a former Harvard classmate, now a successful professor, and the encounter forces him to confront his own stalled career and the incident that got him expelled from Harvard: he deliberately hit a classmate with his car. Angus, meanwhile, begins to see the man behind the prickly exterior. He learns that Hunham has no family, no friends, and no life outside Barton, and he starts to understand that his own anger and fear are not so different from Hunham's.

Mary, for her part, finds some solace in caring for Angus, cooking him meals and teasing him about his manners. She and Hunham share their own quiet moments, both of them carrying losses that the other can recognize. The film builds toward a Christmas Day visit that Angus has been dreading and hiding: a trip to see his father, Thomas Tully, who is not dead, as Angus has claimed, but institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital. Hunham, who has grown fond of the boy, agrees to drive him there. The visit is devastating. Thomas is heavily medicated and barely registers his son's presence. Angus pours out his heart, confessing his deepest fear that he will end up like his father, forgotten and locked away. Hunham, watching from the doorway, is moved to a rare moment of tenderness, telling Angus that his history does not have to dictate his destiny.

The trip has consequences. Angus's mother and stepfather find out about the visit, and they are furious, worried that Thomas's renewed desire to come home will disrupt their new life. They arrive at Barton demanding answers. In a selfless act, Hunham takes full responsibility for the trip, claiming it was entirely his idea, sparing Angus from expulsion. The headmaster fires him. As Hunham packs his office, Angus comes to see him, and the two share a wordless moment of mutual respect. Hunham leaves Barton, but not before arranging something for Angus's future. The film ends with Hunham driving away from the school, alone again, but with a sense of purpose he has never known. Angus, meanwhile, is left with the knowledge that someone believed in him. And Mary, having found a way to extend her hand to Angus, begins to move forward from her grief.[edit]