David Hemingson is one of those screenwriters whose handprint has been left on many TV series (starting with the immortal and life-changing The Adventures of Pete and Pete). The type of writer one is latently aware of without actually being aware of it. And yet, it wasn’t until now that Hemingson’s first screenplay for a feature came to fruition with some directorial help from Alexander Payne. The latter having struck out (critically at least) for the first time in his career with 2017’s Downsizing. Perhaps that’s why, after a six-year break from releasing new work, Payne opted to make someone else’s script come to life. In fact, it was Payne who approached Hemignson about directing the movie, which started out as a pilot for a series set at a New England boarding school. The boarding school idea long kicking around in Hemingson’s head after he himself attended one in Hartford, Connecticut.
The experience clearly stuck with him as the years passed, and he seemed to let the idea keep percolating until the right opportunity materialized via Payne’s interest in the project. Particularly since he wanted his next movie to be contained within a prep school type of setting. Despite being the only film from his oeuvre besides Nebraska that Payne didn’t also write, The Holdovers still bears that distinct Payne stamp of wryness. And, obviously, Paul Giamatti’s (who famously worked with Payne in 2004’s Sideways) performance as Paul Hunham is a large contributing factor to the acerbic wit that permeates any Payne movie. After all, with a last name like his, he’s not going to do his best to make the audience feel “comfortable.” As a matter of fact, the tagline for The Holdovers is “Discomfort and Joy.” But, in the end, doesn’t all discomfort lead to the “growth” required to achieve joy (however ephemeral)? That’s what Hunham’s only diligent student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), seems to learn by the end of a winter break spent in pretty much total solitude with the most hated professor at Barton, the New England boarding school that serves as a foil for the one Hemingson attended in his own youth. But rather than setting the film in Connecticut, Hemingson and Payne chose Massachusetts, during the year 1970. Naturally, anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of American history will note that 1970 was fresh with collective societal trauma as a result of the U.S. government instating the draft at the end of 1969. This “lottery” all but signing any drafted man’s death warrant.
In The Holdovers, this trauma extends very personally to Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, cleansing herself from the part she played in The Idol), the head cook at Barton who just lost her only son, Curtis, to another senseless war. Thanks to her employment at the school, Mary (whose last name not only reminds us that “Mary had a little lamb,” but also that Curtis was her little lamb who got sacrificed on the pyre of the U.S. government’s hubris) was able to secure Curtis’ attendance as a student there. Even though Barton is illustriously reserved as a space for privileged white men. A demographic that Paul clearly can’t stand as much as Mary. Why else would he “dare” to fail the “legacy” student (and son of a major donor) in his much-dreaded classics course? This being a politically incorrect faux pas that leads the headmaster, Hardy Woodrip (Andrew Garman), to assign Paul with the unwanted task of “babysitting” the few “holdovers,” or students who don’t leave campus during the holidays, for the two-week winter break. Which means Woodrip is only too ready to believe the original teacher saddled with the burden when he tells him he can’t do it because his mother has lupus. Assuming that just because Paul has no plans to leave the campus infers that he has nothing “better to do” anyway, Woodrip doesn’t feel too guilty about this unique form of punishment that fell into his lap like a gift from the gods.
Also being punished are the five holdovers stuck in Paul’s “care”: the aforementioned Angus Tully, Teddy Kountze (Brady Hepner), Alex Ollerman (Ian Dolley), Ye-Joon Park (Jim Kaplan) and Jason Smith (Michael Provost). It is the latter’s father who ends up offering the quintet a lifeline by sending a helicopter to pick up Jason (after feeling remorse for exiling him just because he refused to cut his long hair), and then saying, sure, he can bring his “friends” along, too. Unfortunately for Angus (venomously called “Anus” by Teddy), Paul is unable to reach his parents on the phone in order to get permission for him to accompany the others. Thus, leaving him marooned all alone with the curmudgeonly pedagogue. Indeed, the only person he’s ever met that was so curmudgeonly was his own damn self. Thus, the “unlikely pairing” is actually a perfect match, though both men are reluctant to recognize it at first.
Mary, of course, is on her own planet of grief, not much concerned for what these white boys are getting up to so long as they don’t annoy her. That, however, proves to be a tall order most of the time. As Angus and Paul gradually start to “warm” to one another (as much as two cold-hearted bastards can), the holiday suddenly doesn’t feel like as much of a spotlight on what societal rejects they are. Mary, although a Black woman, therefore condemned to be an automatic societal reject in 1970, actually does have family she can go home to in Roxbury. Specifically, her sister (who happens to be pregnant) and brother-in-law. When the viewer realizes this, it becomes apparent that, in contrast to Paul and Angus, her life (in spite of losing her only son) comes across as far less depressing because it is much more rooted in having a sense of community outside of the oppressive school walls. This seems to be a pointed choice on Hemingson’s part, as he seeks to highlight that all the privilege in the world can’t make up for being emotionally bereft. Leading viewers to the notion that one wound will always find another in the hope that, together, they can heal. Or something to that effect that doesn’t sound so cheesy (ergo, would probably make Mr. Hunham want to vomit).
In this regard, The Holdovers emphasizes a message still little at play in mainstream movies (especially mainstream holiday ones). Which is that whatever love you’re trying to find isn’t going to be gleaned from the nuclear family model. Ultimately, you have to create a “family” from the fellow emotionally stunted ilk you encounter out there in the world. Even if you manage to come together solely due to unforeseen circumstances and only for a short period in your life.
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