November 6, 2024

THE HOLDOVERS (2023) – Heartwarming and charming movie to compliment the holiday season

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Rating: ⭐⭐ 1/2

Here is another small unassuming movie spillover from 2023 that went under the radar for me late last year. What prompted me to take notice of it now is that I suddenly see this appearing nominated in all the major movie awards. In fact, as of today, it has already won 3 acting awards from the Critics Choice Awards, 2 acting awards from the Golden Globes and a whooping 7 nominations for the BAFTA! It main star, Paul Giamatti managed to win Best Actor in the Critics Choice Awards over other heavy weights like Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer, Leonardo deCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon and Bradley Cooper in Maestro!

The story takes place over the Christmas to New Year period and hence has quite the perfect theme and message for the yuletide season. Paul Giamatti plays a grunchy teacher who is assigned to remain behind in the school ground during the holiday season. Together with the resident cook, Mary (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph), they “babysit” the sole remaining student Augus (played by Dominic Sessa), who is left behind for the holiday. Augus is typical of the students in the school – undisciplined, defiant, and anti-establishment. This is in contrast to the idiology deeply seeded in teacher Paul.

To brand this movie as a comedy would be a bit of a misconception as I find there to be very little laugh out loud humour in the story. If anything, I thought the whole plot was kind of sad and tragic as reflected by the background of each of these 3 main characters as the story unfolded. The film’s strength and charm lies with the strong characterisation and how they collide and ultimately reconcile at the end. Paul Giamatti’s Paul is sort of like a version of Scrooge or the Grinch in typical Christmas stories where the nasty guy begins to turn soft by the end. Despite this predictability of the film’s direction, it was still watchable because who can resist a heartwarming tale during this holiday season? It helps that the film did not resort to being an all-out slapstick comedy and that its 3 characters are so well defined and performed, lending the film a sense of sincerity as otherwise it would have just fallen fall on its face. It was a little too predictable at times for me, and I felt the film could have benefited from some elevated moments to help break and provide some highs over its constant flat momentum.

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