The Holdovers (2023)

Rated R primarily for language.  There's a lot of sexual references, but nothing that is overtly offensive.  Again, this is another one of those movies that has moments of people being intentionally cruel to one another.  Unlike other movies with deliberate cruelty, the movie itself is not cruel.  I honestly think that it gets the R rating for language.

DIRECTOR:  Alexander Payne

I was not ready to watch the best movie of the year when I sat down for this one. I knew it was going to be quality.  I knew it.  It looked like one of those movies from the preview.  But in a year that had Oppenheimer and its super-cinematic feel to it, it really caught me off guard that The Holdovers might be better than Oppenheimer.  I'd like to point out that, while I own Oppenheimer, I have yet to watch it.  Take this opening paragraph as something more of a speculative concept.  

I mean, the movie sold me with its production company titles.  I'm such a sucker for faux retro that it wouldn't take much to push me over into admiration of this film.  I mean, it even came down to the font on the credits.  Everything was just trying to appeal to me.  This is a guy who likes Alexander Payne, but doesn't love Alexander Payne.  I know I'm going to upset some people out there, but I did not care for Nebraska.  Some of the other movies in his ouevre are pretty forgettable for me.  (I also found out from his IMdB page that he directed some late night stuff for HBO, which I tend not to include in the Alexander Payne canon.)  But Payne's got something that was fully realized in The Holdovers that I've never really thought of before.  The closest he ever got to The Holdovers was The Descendants.  The Payne comedy / dramedy tends to be this fine line between finding the funny out of the mundane and the honest truth out of misery.  With The Descendants, Payne takes the notion of divorce and scandal and infuses it with quirky neuroses.  I think it entirely works and I don't want to diminish the success of that movie.

The thing about The Holdovers is that we have neurotic characters, but all three of these protagonist are imbued with a rich history that explains the way that they act.  These are some well-developed and --more importantly --well-loved characters.  Because I probably relate more to Mr. Hunham as an aging humanities teacher, I'm going to save him for last.  I hate to put Mary first because it feels like I'm diminishing the richness of her character, but I also am able to put my finger on what is going on with her so clearly that I can't wait to let it out.  Mary is perhaps one of the most realistic portrayals of grief that I've ever seen. It's so important that this movie is set at Christmas for all of these characters because Christmas means three different things for these characters, yet all of them are tragic.  Mary's tragedy is the most spelled out for us.  She has recently lost her child to a senseless war.  She previously lost her husband, so this is the first time that this character is alone.  One of the things that is often portrayed about grief is that it is about constant crying.  

For some people, it is absolutely that. I don't want to say that grief is one thing or another.  I think my grief is a lot like Mary's.  Mary doesn't want to be the poster child for grief. She has been through a lot and all these eyes --these White eyes --are constantly looking at her.  She was always defined by her strength, and her character has now been redefined by weakness.  There's this fine balance that Da'Vine Joy Randolph gives Mary.  Everything is about survival for this character.  She both wants the world to be normal and the world to be better. She knows that she would rather be anywhere else than at her job with these two whiny losers.  But she also knows that anywhere else would force her to stay with her thoughts.  There's an odd kind of therapy happening by coping with these two guys who are so screwed up that she can at least try to fix it.  Do I think she loves these two characters?  Yes, but...  

The "Yes, but..." is the most accurate thing I can sell this as.  She sees both of their humanities, bruises and all.  There has to be a temptation to play that character as someone who wants to actively slap both of these characters constantly.  Instead, there is almost a gratitude to be able to be a distant caregiver to both of these people.  When everyone is looking at her, it's nice to know that she has people that she can direct that energy outwards to.  If she was grieving, would she put that much investment into these two guys?  Probably not.  She would probably give a little effort, a coutesty that Lydia Crane gives.  But there wouldn't be a degree of investment.  She finds value in the fact that she is the most together of the three of them and she has no right to be the most together of the three of them.  It's a fascinating character and I absolutely adore it.  When Mary breaks down at Lydia's Christmas party, there's a heartbroken family all standing together.  They are all there to catch Mary as she falls and she wishes that they weren't there in the least. It hit me hard.

Angus Tully is really well played. My wife told me that this really was Dominic Sessa's first thing and he might be my actor of the year.  He's so convincing as this.  He nails his very specific character so well.  I kept asking, "Is he the coolest loser or the least-liked cool guy ever?"  I mean, it's Holden Caufield.  I hate that I made that comparison, but Holden Caufield and Angus Tully are fundamentally the same person.  I hate me for writing it, too.  The drop, though, for this character is absolutely perfect.  Again, I'm always going to bond with a movie that has aggressive daddy issues.  I apologize to everyone for that. It's just points in the right slot. The trailer prepped me for one movie.  Really, the Christmas party is such an important scene for the movie because it changes the dynamics of the characters so much.  But that scene, where Tully blurts out that is father is dead prepped me for one movie.  When the Boston reveal happens, I was shook.  Somehow, the movie took the grief of a dead father and made it somehow harsher.

Honestly, the sanitorium scene had me begging for one happy moment.  We all knew how that was going to shake down.  We had Angus desperate to hear a normal response for his dad.  He's setting up all of these pins for his dad to just say something healthy and normal and we knew that we weren't going to get that ending.  We knew that he was going to say something just a little bit crazy and that's what happened. Maybe this is one of those moments where Payne absolutely gets what tone he's shooting for.  We knew that he was going to say something crazy.  There's such an opening for a joke here.  After all, this is a dramedy.  But he says the most mundane insane thing in the world. (Seems paradoxical, but it's accurate.)  He complains that he thinks he's being drugged in his food.  Flat delivery.  He says it with the essence of a confidant, not of a father.  With this scene, all of those pieces fall into place. We get why Tully is booted from every school he goes to.  We get mad at Angus's family because this is a kid desperate for something to go right for him.  

That's what makes Mr. Hunham's critique of  Angus's mother and stepfather so brutal.  Everything he says is accurate.  These are people who fail to see beyond the blinders of comfort and happiness.  Listen, for the most part I believe in "Whatever makes you happy". That phrase makes me cringe real hard, despite believing a lot of that concept.  But the reason that I cringe is because of Angus's mother and stepfather.  Happiness is nice, but caring is better...

Which brings me to Hunham.  That's his entire throughline as a character.  Hunham has found comfort in his station.  He is the big fish in a small pond.  All the other fish hate this guy, but he's just being his most authentic self.  He loves things that everyone else finds tedious.  (Check.  I get that pretty hard.)  He smells like fish.  I hope I don't smell like fish, so I refuse to check that.  He's technically living the American Dream.  He found the job he is most suited for. His work became his home and he absolutely loves it. He may be lying about his own happiness.  He seems more numb to criticism than actually ignoring it.  It could explain the constant drinking that isn't resolved at the end of the movie.  But the message behind this character is that happiness is important, but caring is more important.  I told you that Christmas is so central to each of these characters because Mr. Hunham is actually a more authentic Mr. Scrooge than Scrooge is.

Hunham doesn't hate Christmas.  He has almost no opinion on Christmas.  Scrooge is almost a bit over the top for me.  I know that real Scrooges exist.  I'm not naive to think that there aren't people who value money and productivity over people.  I see the world crumbling around me, guys.  I'm just saying that Hunham is so locked into a sense of comfort that he's doing the right thing that he forgets that different people have different needs than he does.  He's not a bad guy.  As frustrating as Hunham is at the beginning of the movie, he's never actually villainous.  He has a strict moral code because he thinks that he's doing the right thing as a teacher.  But when the movie progresses, he's reminded that individuals have different needs and sometimes we need to sacrifice for others, even if we aren't required to. 

The scene of him with the parents --again! --so powerful.  Only minutes before this scene, Tully and he are discussing the value that Dalton has for Hunham.  He didn't need Harvard or any of these prestigious universities to take care of him.  He made a home in the place that made him feel most accepted.  Again, that American Dream thing is perfecdt for him.  He's getting paid to do what he loves and he's living off of that.  He's sacrificed great pay for something that makes him happy.  When he claims that it was his idea to see Angus's dad, we all knew the value of the sacrifice of that moment.  He sees that Dalton isn't really the Dalton of his childhood.  It's incredibly bittersweet because, even if he got his job back, he would only be able to see Dalton as the perversion of what it once was.