The Holdovers Review

Payne's conceit is to make the film the way it would have been made in 1970, with grain, zooms, a faded studio logo and an unhurried middle, and the pastiche is convincing enough to stop registering as a gimmick within twenty minutes. The structure is entirely predictable, which the film knows: a hated teacher, an abandoned student, a grieving cook, a Christmas that forces them together. What redeems it is the specificity of the playing. Paul Giamatti gives Hunham a defensiveness built out of real humiliation rather than eccentricity, and the reveal about his own history reframes every cruel line he has delivered.

Da'Vine Joy Randolph does the hardest work with the least screen time, playing grief as exhaustion rather than display, and the scene where she finally names her son is the best thing in the picture. Dominic Sessa is a genuine discovery. David Hemingson's script leans on coincidence, and the trip to Boston assembles its beats a little too neatly. The last conversation in the headmaster's office earns the sentiment it has been saving.