cult film freak: ALEXANDER PAYNE & PAUL GIAMATTI REUNITE FOR 'THE HOLDOVERS'

Written by James M. Tate / 11/10/2023 / No comments / 2023 , alexander payne , comedy , counter-culture , drama , new , paul giamatti , teen , time period

ALEXANDER PAYNE & PAUL GIAMATTI REUNITE FOR 'THE HOLDOVERS'

11/10/2023 | No comment

Title: THE HOLDOVERS Year: 2023 Rating: **

Director Alexander Payne is passive/aggressive when it comes to his previous SIDEWAYS star Paul Giamatti's character Paul Hunham, a stuffy, curmudgeon-like professor at an all-boys boarding school, who in one scene angrily lectures his students while glibly handing-out failing grades, and the next idealistically defends the institution's grieving African-American cook from one of a small-handful of HOLDOVER teens, unable to go home for Christmas and having to spend a melancholy "detention" (like THE BREAKFAST CLUB meets DEAD POET'S SOCIETY meets 1972's CHILD'S PLAY) stuck in an otherwise empty campus...

Ironically, that particular scolded brat winds up getting a last-minute Christmas vacation reprieve... a shame since he had the kind of antagonistic attitude that would inevitably transition by the end...

Paul Giamatti in THE HOLDOVERS

But here the sole abandoned youngster is Dominic Sessa as Angus Tully, one of those semi-complicated blunt/sassy meets dull/depressed loner types, and who's almost impossible to either root for or relate with...

And sadly, with uneven ingredients stuffed into a bland counter-culture-era drama (probably set in 1970 so the kids aren't glued to cell-phones), NEBRASKA and ABOUT SCHMIDT indie-auteur Payne... usually prone to road-movies with a fresh twist around every corner... drives a tired vehicle down a tediously overlong and ultimately dead-end street.

Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Paul Giamatti & Darby Lee-Stack in The Holdovers

Dominic Sessa and Jim Kaplan leftover in THE HOLDOVERS

Brady Hepner as the one-dimensional jerk in THE HOLDOVERS

Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa in THE HOLDOVERS

Dustin Hoffman from Little Big Man in THE HOLDOVERS

Gillian Vigman and 80's actor Tate Donovan in THE HOLDOVERS

Retro 1970 Opening in THE HOLDOVERS

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Tags : 2023 , alexander payne , comedy , counter-culture , drama , new , paul giamatti , teen , time period

James M. Tate

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