OSCARS 2024: The Holdovers (2023)

You know how the saying goes: One day you're up, the next you're down. This is especially true in Hollywood, where – to employ another literary cliché – you're only as good as your last picture. Alexander Payne, it's fair to say, has been well respected most of his career. Edgy, smart comedies like “Citizen Ruth” and “Election” would draw attention, Payne getting his first Oscar nomination for the latter's screenplay. Each of his subsequent films would be nominated for at least one Academy Award, Payne winning two statues for “Sideways'” and “The Descendants'” screenplays. Then came “Downsizing,” a critical and commercial flop. People in Hollywood also have short memories, which can work in filmmakers' favors some times, so Payne came back with last year's “The Holdovers.”  With it, came the warm reviews and awards recognition that usually greets his pictures. I'm generally a fan of the director so I've got some thoughts on this one.

The time is 1970 and the place is Barton Academy, a prestigious prep school in New England. Paul Hunham is an ancient history teacher widely despised by his students, due to his strict nature. As the Christmas holiday approaches, Hunham is chosen to chaperone the handful of students staying over. Among them is Angus Tully, a bright but sardonic young man resentful of his parents and unpopular with his classmates. After a rich kid's dad picks most of the group up in a helicopter, Angus is left alone with Hunham and Mary Lamb, the school cook whose son was recently killed in Vietnam. The trio form an unusual friendship, learning much more about each other, as one year comes to a close and another begins. 

From its opening minutes, “The Holdovers” announces its fidelity to an older tradition of American cinema. It begins with the seventies Universal Studios logo, a vintage MPAA tag, and a classically styled version of the Focus Features intro. Right away, this lets us know that “The Holdovers” is a homage to the quiet, character-driven dramedies of the early seventies. A folk-driven soundtrack, which includes at least one Cat Stevens song, suggests “Harold and Maude” was a big influence. A certain degree of grain is added to the film, while the cinematography is exactly the type of deep, spacious, warm visuals that invoke the long-passed decade. This extra step allows “The Holdovers” to capture the feeling of the early seventies more-so than simply a fitting needle drop or old-school fashion. 

Aesthesis, no matter how perfectly they may be captured, will only take you so far. Luckily, “The Holdovers” has the substance to back up its style. This is, more than anything, an exploration of loneliness. Paul has a medical condition that gives him an unpleasant body odor, a lazy eye, a past full of mistakes that cost him a more prestigious career, and seems to be a bit of an alcoholic. All of this and more is probably why he's a prickly asshole. Angus has a similarly sardonic personality, a chip on his shoulders, and a fear that he's destined to become his mentally ill father. Mary Lamb is so deep in her mourning that she's reluctant to connect with others. The film expertly observes how loneliness is formed by circumstances outside of people's control and their own reactions to what they've lived through. It doesn't preclude empathy – as seen in a touching moment when Angus comforts another holdover who had an accident in bed – but it does inform how humans act.

Of course, these three do form a makeshift family of sorts as they get to know each other. As cliché as this development may be, “The Holdovers” approaches it in a careful and touching manner. That the characters are so prickly make the comforting interactions they have with each other more meaningful. Mary's heartbreak, over the loss of her son, is so touchingly portrayed in scenes where she feels alone at a party or lays her pain out for Paul. The banter between the boys is sharp, funny, and well observed. The many long conversations between Paul and Angus slowly establishes what they have in common and their differences, the two warming up to each as they see their elements of each other in themselves. It's the kind of well-observed comedy and drama that feels real and lived-in.

Helping make these characters even more realized is an incredible cast. This is exactly the kind of  role Paul Giametti was made for. The grouchy Hunham gives him plenty of acerbic dialogue to sink his teeth into, which Giametti is excellent at, of course. Yet he's also skilled at making such characters lovable in spite of themselves, causing the premise of an asshole with a secret golden heart, all the more earned in the touching final act. Dominic Sessa makes his cinematic debut as Angus. Reminding me a lot of a young Brad Dourif, Sessa has a distinctive attitude as a performer, while also being able to project a certain vulnerability. I think this kid has a future, for sure. Da'Vine Joy Randolph is so warm as Mary Lamb, while also wearing her broken heart right on her sleeve. She's the whole movie in microcosm, a deeply lovable human being hidden behind a wall of hurt that is all too reasonable. 

In other words, “The Holdovers” is really good. Gorgeously photographed and assembled, it's the kind of unlikely holiday faire that I love. Its snowy setting and often ironic use of Christmas standards goes hand-in-hand with the way it embraces an honest humanity. A film built upon wonderful actors creating personable characters, it has laughs and lots of heart without ever being shmaltzy or overly sentimental. [8/10]

Recent Watches: Nebraska (2013)

The more films Alexander Payne makes, the more his interest in family comes into focus. “About Schmidt” and “The Descendents” were both concerned with the relationship between parents and children. “Nebraska” returns to this subject but from a different perspective. It’s not an aging, disapproving father wearyingly looking at his daughter’s marriage. Nor a father and rebellious teenage daughter learning to find common ground. Instead, “Nebraska” focuses on an adult age son looking back on his elderly father’s life, discovering the things they have in common.

“Nebraska” has widely been framed as a late-career revival for Bruce Dern. Dern, once a leading man in the seventies, has mostly been in small roles in small movies for the last few decades. Woody Grant is an unlikely hero and a good fit for Dern’s laconic charm. At first, the audience wonders if Woody’s sleepy reaction to most of the things around is a result of not paying attention or a deteriorating mind. As the film goes on, it becomes clear that Woody’s brain is starting to go. However, he’s not a weak, senile old man. Instead, his actions have motivators. Slowly, the film reveals a life full of small losses, compromises that have taken their toll. Dern’s weathered face conveys weight, his lonely eyes and slouching posture subtly showing his buried sorrows. Upon first appearance, he’s pointed at where he’s been, nodding quietly. He then points forward, certain in where he’s going.

Woody proves the most lovable when suddenly energized. Convinced he’s won a million from a mail-in contest, he wanders off on the road to claim the dubious money, much to the frustrations of his nagging wife and adult sons. When son David takes pity on his illing father, and his mother gets fed up with the old man wandering off, he decides to take Woody on one last road trip. My favorite moments are when Dern shows how excited his character is. The two searching a train track for his missing teeth is amusing, slowly giving us a peak into the old man’s mind. Woody waking David up, determined to get his money today, shows the elderly man in an unusually spry moment. After loosing his paper in town, Woody seems at lost. Until David suggests they look for it. At which point the old man is on his feet, ready to go. Even a brief stay in a hospital isn’t enough to keep him off the road.

While Bruce Dern dominates the film in his folksy, quiet way, “Nebraska” wouldn’t work anywhere near as well as it does without Will Forte as David. Primarily known as a comedic actor, Forte proves adapt at dramatic acting. We don’t get much of a look at David’s inner-life, save for a brief, mostly unnecessary scene with his ex-girlfriend. Like his father, he’s a quiet person, keeping his feelings and thoughts to himself. At film’s beginning, David doesn’t have any particularly strong feelings about his father. He mostly regards him as a doddering old man. As the film goes on, the son learns much about his father. Not just his past but his inner-life. Forte has incredible chemistry with Dern, playing off each other fantastically. When David confronts Woody about his life-long alcoholism, there’s no fiery resentment. Instead, the interaction lies somewhere between curiosity and quiet pain. Watching the two learning to rediscover each other is one of the film’s greatest joys.

Aside from Dern and Forte, another strong force in “Nebraska” is June Squibb as Woody’s long-suffering wife. Or is Woody the long-suffering one? It’s hard to imagine how such a quiet old man fell in with a loud-mouth spit-fire. Squibb is a force of nature here, cussing and joking. Over the years, her patience for her husband’s habits has only shortened. Upon stepping off a bus, she greets her husband of so many years not with a hug and a kiss but rather a shorten swear. Squibb’s strongest moment, bound to be her Oscar clip, is when she visits the local cemetery. David and Woody stay back, quiet. Kate goes to each grave, talking about the deceased, the rumors and gossip of their lives. How their paths crossed, what she remembers. Kate spares no words, calling her close friend a slut and a brother an idiot. Squibb creates a real human being, an old woman full of piss and vinegar. The Academy got it right, June more then earning her nomination.

Alexander Payne’s films often have a degree of humor in them, even if they’re telling very sad stories. “Nebraska” might, in actuality, be one of the director’s funniest films. It features humor quite a bit broader then his past efforts, playing up the director’s talent for the absurd the most since “Election.” Upon being reunited with his extended family in Nebraska, some unusual characters come out of the woodwork. When learning that a family member is coming into some money, folks start showing up, asking for money. This comes to blows rather comically with the other son, Bob Odenkirk’s Ross. Two nephews, twins, are great big rednecks, figuratively and literally. One just got out of jail for rape. They wind up jumping the old man outside a bar, stealing his ticket. The whole situation is so absurd that you can’t help but laugh.

A subtler strain of humor runs through the film. My favorite moment is when Woody and all his brothers are gathered in the living room. Each one is dressed in buttoned-up plaid shirts. Each one stares slack-jawed at the television. When Dave mentions the drive down suddenly, each old man, without changing their expression at all, look to him in rapt attention. Somewhere between the film’s two styles of humor is a moment later on, when the two brothers wind up in a barn, mistakenly stealing the wrong air compresser, the follow-up to one of the movie’s best running jokes. Over all, “Nebraska” is a far funnier film then you’d expect.

Which isn’t to say that “Nebraska” isn’t without deeply sad moments. Hawthorne is a real dead-end town. The whole place seems to be a single street, a garage and a bar the only spot around. The treatment he receives from some of his old “friends’ is ghastly. Stacy Keach plays the film’s more-or-less villain. He has some personal grudge against Woody from years ago and is determined to get repaid. When he tells David about a painful period of his father’s past, Dern only looks aside, quiet, his eyes a million miles away. Another person in town, Angela McEwan as Peg Nagy, was an old lover of Woody, years before he met David’s mother. The son meets with the old woman, learning more about his father in that one minute then he knew in a lifetime. The quietest, saddest moment in the film comes when the family visits Woody’s childhood home, abandoned but still standing. The camera watches, quietly, as the old man looks through the rooms, out the windows. It doesn’t express what he’s thinking, Dern’s face showing a lifetime of regrets and thoughts. “Nebraska” rarely goes for big emotion, instead reaching for quiet, sad truths.

There’s been some words written about the director’s decision to shoot the film in black-and-white. My first thought was that Payne made the decision as a deliberate reference to stark character studies of the seventies, especially “The Last Picture Show,” a definite influence. Instead, the choice seems to have been made to reflect the wide, flat landscape of the setting. “Nebraska” is a soft, personal story but Payne’s decision to shoot the film in wide, huge shots makes the personal very large. It’s an uncommonly pretty movie.

“Nebraska” has a great ending, so neatly wrapping up the story’s emotional baggage, giving Woody one final moment of dignity, while maintaining the honesty and humor of the film that came before. The film has the director returning to similar territory as “About Schmidt,” but with a little more sincerity and a little more heart. That heart beats from two wonderful performances and a script that is sadly humorous and humorously sad. The movie won’t win a lot of Oscars which isn’t fair. It should win a bunch. [9/10]

Recent Watches: 2/12/12

George Clooney is an interesting A-List star actor. With his matinee idol looks and his incredible charm, he could have easily slummed into a series of lazy, cash-grabbing roles. (And occasionally does.) Instead, he’s mostly used his pull and talent to make smaller, quirkier films, occasionally winning awards along the way.

The latest thing he’s done is “The Descendents.” Based off a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, the film roots itself in the rich history of Hawaii. The first thing it does is remind viewers that Hawaii isn’t all beaches and vacation spots. There are cities, full of miserable people, in miserable nine-to-five jobs. From there, the story focuses on Matt King, a man with problems. His wife is in a coma and he just recently discovered that she was cheating on him at the time of her accident. He has a tumultuous relationship with both of his daughters, rebellious teenager Alex and quirky ten year old Scottie. On top of all of this, he finds himself the sole head of a family trustee group, stretching back to the very origins of the island as a part of the United States, deciding whither or not to sell a piece of untouched Hawaii land. All of this is sturdy ground to build a film on, dramatic, comedic, or otherwise.

It’s not new territory for director Alexander Payne. The film frequently plays like a less-funny version of Payne’s “About Schmit.” “Less-funny” is an important distinction, since “About Schmit” was a frequently hilarious but also deeply sad film all about regret and the fear that life is meaningless. Despite being advertised as a comedy, “The Descendents” is a bit of a drag. Clooney’s Matt King is a sad-sack, listless man, full of impotent rage, cracking under the weight of his responsibilities. His oldest daughter is a brat, swearing, drinking, challenging him constantly, and even dragging her clueless male friend along on family duties. Younger Scottie is undeniably weird. Honestly, the way little Amanda Miller plays it, you wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the girl grows up to be a serial killer.

All of this is established even before we find out that his comatose, dying wife was screwing around on them. At this point, a deeply suppressed, barely contained anger works its way into the film. The movie attempts to sum up all the grief, hurt, and betrayal such a scenario would create. While it does occasionally succeed, these heavy themes end up dragging the film down. Far too much of the film’s run time is composed of very sad people not being allowed to be very sad. “The Descendents” probably should have been about that emotional repression. Instead, it just lets that stuff slide off its back, not wanting to distract from the real story of a father getting back in touch with his estranged daughters, an idea no other screenwriter has ever had in the history of Hollywood, ever.

It’s really not until the end of the movie, when Clooney finally meets up with the man responsible for cuckolding him, that things pick up some. The man in question has a family himself, a very happy one, and a hugely successful business. (One that ties into the mostly tenuous land-deal subplot.) Here the movie finally addresses the messed-up storm of emotions its story has raised, answering some of it with a satisfying, mature ambiguity. There’s a hint of romance between Clooney and the man’s wife, played by an underutilized Judy Greer. Ultimately, it’s Greer who sets up the deeply needed, much appreciated catharsis that drives this middling film to its far-better conclusion.

None of the faults lie with the cast. Clooney is, as always, excellent, really showing off the wrinkles in his face and happily cracking up his movie-star facade. Shailene Woodley is especially good as the oldest daughter. Despite the character being unlikable, Woodley plays her as a real firecracker, someone who doesn’t spare the words or emotions that everyone else in the film contains. I’m surprised she didn’t receive an Oscar nomination. Robert Forster has a very funny supporting role as Clooney’s father-in-law. Like his granddaughter, he doesn’t suffers fools and let’s everybody known when he doesn’t like the cut of their jib. His interaction with clueless stoner Sid provides some of the film’s all-too-few laughs. You can’t even blame director Payne, who shoots the movie with an assured hand, letting the gorgeous Hawaiian landscape speak for itself. Similarly, the Hawaiian influenced score helpfully speaks to the emotional side of the movie, went it’s allowed.

Nope, it’s the script, written by Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim “Lean, Mean, Dean-ing Machine” Rash. The movie stuffs Clooney’s mouth with an unnecessary, exposition-heavy voiceover, which brings to mind Harrison Ford’s laconic narration in the theatrical cut of “Blade Runner.” Luckily, that’s dropped before the movie is over. What isn’t dropped is the land trust subplot which, generally, adds nothing to the film, other then giving Beau Bridges a reason to show up. The additional story further drags down an already drag-y film. Moreover, it provides an easy, loaded precursor to the story’s inner-thoughts. You know that Clooney’s decision on what to do with the land will tie in neatly with whither or not he forgives his wife for her indiscretions. So, “The Descendents” is mediocre material propped up by an excellent class and pretty direction. Something that can be sadly said for far too much of the Oscar bait out there. (6/10)