Spoilers below.

Tyler: Norman, here we are today to discuss Alexander Payne’s latest film, The Holdovers.  Payne has put together gems throughout his career, from Election to About Schmidt to Sideways, continuing through The Descendants and Nebraska.  2017’s Downsizing was a weird outlier, a Payne picture I had completely forgotten until about twenty minutes ago.

Norman: Downsizing is the only Payne movie I haven’t seen and I’m not entirely sure I want to.

Tyler: It didn’t leave any kind of impression on me, at least not one that lasted more than a day or two.  Big swing, big miss.

Norman: I give credit to artists who try something insane and completely bomb with it. It’s better than whatever the next Marvel movie might be.

Tyler: That’s a solid point.  Better to be creative than the alternative.

Norman: The Holdovers seems like a return to the Alexander Payne we’ve come to know over the past 25 years.

Tyler: He even reunites with Sideways star Paul Giamatti.  Man, I hadn’t seen him onscreen in some time, either.

I don’t watch Billions, and those commercials for something-or-other don’t count.

Norman: He isn’t in enough movies. A national treasure, that man.

Tyler: He might be in line for the gold this time around.  Momentum is building for this movie.

Norman: I’d be happy with that. It’s a great tragicomic performance. Few could pull it off.

Tyler: He’s excellent.  Had me from the opening scene, where he’s grading exams and muttering “Philistines.”

I really loved this movie.

Norman: The Holdovers is a warm blanket of a movie to me. Something so lovely, comforting, challenging, and pleasurable.

Tyler: It’s remarkable.  Is it the guy’s best?  Payne, I mean.  Got some heavy hitters in that catalog, I know.  But Holdovers is special.

Norman: My top three would be Nebraska, Election, and Holdovers. In any order.

Other than Giamatti what makes this one so good?

Tyler: Eesh, where to begin?  It’s such a damn fine motion picture.

Writing?  Set design?  Casting?

There are so many rewarding surprises.

Norman: I’ll start with sense of place. Set design obviously plays a role here, but I could feel the creaking of the stairs and the cold in my bones. I don’t know how real to the period this movie is, but I felt transported to a different place and time that might as well have been real.

Tyler: I like that.  I appreciate a strong setting, that sense of place.

The period details were present, but never overplayed.  This ain’t Wonder Woman 1984, falling all over itself to play an era for laughs.  It lives in 1970.

In December, at that.  You’re right about how cold those outdoor scenes feel.

Norman: Yes. I think I noticed a The Who poster on a dorm wall at one point, but otherwise it never tries to throw pop culture references at you or anything like that. The soundtrack does a nice job of setting the tone in this regard. There are Christmas carols, which are timeless, there’s period music, and then there’s a few Damien Jurado tracks from the last decade. Those fit seamlessly.

Tyler: Ah yes, we begin with the Barton boys choir.  I never went to boarding school, and The Holdovers doesn’t change my conviction that it would’ve been suffocating.

The way our three main characters—and we should make note of actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa, rounding out our trio of heroes—manage escape, be it to Boston or in the bottom of a pint of Beam, is so telling.

Norman: That’s part of the appeal. It’s an escape movie. Everyone is huddled up in that school by themselves with nothing in particular to do. It’s 1970, so there aren’t any cell phones, Netflix, video games, whatever. There are no girls around. It’s stone cold boring unless you want to read or walk in the snow. Their trip to Boston is a relief for both audience and characters. A trip to the local bar feels like a vacation, and a local party feels like an exotic location.

Tyler: There are movies that can make a cheeseburger sound novel and irresistible.  This is one of them.

Norman: That scene between Angus and Elise, which ends up being only a short kiss, is so erotically charged.

Tyler: That’s quality art right there.  Just nailing those teenage moments of first kisses and intriguing blouse necklines.

Norman: In a lesser movie they would have gone off for a quickie in the closet.

Tyler: I find it melancholy that they’ll likely never see each other again.

Norman: And that’s exactly why I loved The Holdovers. It’s the type of movie to let characters and relationships go.

Nothing is wrapped up with a bow on top.

Relationships are allowed to be ephemeral.

Tyler: Hell, Angus and Paul will probably never meet again.  As you note, this is 1970.  No e-mails, no texts.

Norman: Angus might see Mary, but only in a professional way. What all these characters had for those couple of weeks can’t be repeated.

Tyler: This feels like a holiday classic.  To hell with A Christmas Story, I want to watch The Holdovers next December.

Norman: Gremlins is my favorite Christmas movie. I’d do a double feature.

Tyler: I’m still glowing from seeing the Die Hard rerelease a few weeks back.  That said, it finally occurred to me: who throws a company party on Christmas Eve?  But I digress.

Norman: It looks like we both agree about the Holdovers. It’s great. One thing we haven’t mentioned yet is the pacing. This isn’t slow cinema, but it’s certainly the type of movie that allows you to soak in details and enjoy the moment without pressing you on to the next big thing. That’s a luxury in today’s movie scene that deserves my appreciation.

Tyler: And it’s got such a warm heart.

Norman: Yes! This is hard to talk about without spoiling the ending, but you leave with the sense that there can be goodness in the world. That’s hard to achieve without going into Hallmark movie territory, but The Holdovers does it.

Tyler: Spoil away.

Norman: The ending involves a real sacrifice on Paul’s part. He covers for Angus out of the goodness of his crotchety heart and then advocates for him to disconnected parents. Seeing that play out in a way that is earned is so, so satisfying.

Tyler: “Don’t ruin the boy.”

Norman: Payne does such a good job of undercutting those moments with an insult involving penile cancer.

Tyler: What was the second part of that insult?? I laughed so hard at “penis cancer” that I missed the follow-up bon mot.

Norman: I don’t remember now. The penile cancer joke stood out so much.

Tyler: I chuckled and laughed throughout this movie.  It’s funny as hell.

Norman: It’s a real treat to see something that is both funny and moving. Something true, but lighthearted at the same time.

Tyler: It’s the kind of movie you breathlessly recommend.

Which is to say: we recommend The Holdovers, readers.

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