Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti Reunite for ‘The Holdovers,’ Making a Few New Holiday Friends Along the Way

October 24, 2023

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Hold it! (CREDIT: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC)

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Andrew Garman, Naheem Garcia, Michael Provost, Brady Hepner, Jim Kaplan, Ian Dolley, Gillian Vigman, Tate Donovan

Director: Alexander Payne

Running Time: 133 Minutes

Rating: R for Cranky Curmudgeonliness and Teenage Boys Being Teenage Boys

Release Date: October 27, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Merry Christmas! Why, it’s still merely October, you say? Well, having the holidays thrusted upon you a couple months early is surely a more bearable fate than that borne by Barton Academy prep school student Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and his hidebound history teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) in the early 1970s. Angus is stuck at school over the winter break because his mom (Gillian Vigman) and stepdad (Tate Donovan) are too busy jet-setting, while Paul pulls the short end of the faculty stick as the guardian for all the kids who don’t have anywhere else to go. This is a formula that’s promising an explosive clash of strong personalities, but maybe head of the cafeteria Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) can help to extinguish the eruptions.

What Made an Impression?: Not-So-Hidden Layers: If you’re 18 or younger, then Mr. Hunham will probably strike you as an absolute nightmare. I’m pretty sure everyone had at least one teacher who was so soul-crushingly set in his ways. But older viewers will likely be more willing to extend him if not affection, then certainly understanding. Right from the jump, he reveals that he’s more complicated than the stodgy traditionalist he’s presented as, and obviously a character played by Paul Giamatti and directed by Alexander Payne was always going to be plenty three-dimensional. The specifics of those dimensions mainly have to do with his frustration that’s directed at a world that appears to be falling apart as well as all the young, privileged kids who are blissfully unaware of their inoculation against all that.
Kindred Spirits: When Angus and Paul’s antagonism eventually begins to soften into something resembling mentorship, it’s because of that time-honored tradition of seeing themselves in each other. As it turns out, they’ve both been handicapped by some pretty bum deals in life, and they go about their days with simmering anger shaping pretty much every one of their actions. They’re the kind of people who secretly shoulder burdens all by themselves, only to generate a ton of sympathy when the truths are uncovered. They go through quite a rocky start, but it’s ultimately a blessing that they’ve found each other.
A True Three-Hander: I can imagine a version of The Holdovers that features just Angus and Paul as its only two characters, and that version probably would have been pretty satisfying. But the version we actually get is even more so, thanks to the straight-shooting performance of Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Mary is notably more emotionally open than everyone around her, which allows her to serve as the enzyme to get Paul to open up, at least a little bit. There’s a sweet early scene in which he joins her while she’s watching The Newlywed Game. He’s never watched it before, so he pinpoints the premise as a recipe for disaster, which she assures him is exactly the point. And ultimately this movie demonstrates that being open to even small new experiences like this one can start nudging us towards exactly where we need to go.

The Holdovers is Recommended If You Like: Rushmore, Armageddon Time, The Way Way Back

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 History Exams

This Is a Movie Review: Miniaturization is Only the Start of ‘Downsizing’s’ Quest to Save the Human Species

December 21, 2017

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CREDIT: Paramount Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in December 2017.

Starring: Matt Damon, Hong Chau, Christoph Waltz, Kristen Wiig, Udo Kier, Rolf Lassgård, Jason Sudeikis, Maribeth Monroe

Director: Alexander Payne

Running Time: 135 Minutes

Rating: R for Scientific Full-Frontal Nudity

Release Date: December 22, 2017

How do you live in such a way that ensures both the health of the planet and yourself? That’s really what Downsizing is asking. Its light sci-fi innovation about shrinking people is just a quirky way to get in there and explore this big conundrum. No single piece of entertainment is going to answer that question to everyone’s satisfaction, but Downsizing at least knows how to grab our attention, and Alexander Payne’s take is interesting enough in getting us to where he wants to go.

Fair warning, if it is not clear already, that Downsizing is not exactly the movie advertised in its trailer. Its whimsical tale of the land of the miniatures is present, but it is ultimately just an entry point to smuggle a thornier story into. After all, there is only so far you can go with the visual humor of size differential juxtaposition. There are a few bits wringing laughs out of giant (i.e., regular-sized) crackers or Jason Sudeikis sitting on a cutting board and drinking from a tiny wine glass, but those moments are there to just add quick bursts of establishing color. In fact, most of the shots in the miniature world do not feature any contrast to the normal-sized surroundings.

The miniaturization process has been invented to reduce the strain that humans have been putting on the environment, which makes clear sense: if you’re only 5 or 6 inches, you consume many fewer resources than if you’re 5 or 6 feet. And from a personal standpoint, it’s a no-brainer as well, as the exchange rate is tremendous, multiplying the real spending value of your money by about a hundredfold. So Paul Safranek (Matt Damon), bored by his office job and feeling glum at home, signs right up. But his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) pulls out of the procedure at the last minute, portending that everything may not be as rosy as promised.

Downsizing is primarily interested in digging into the questions raised by this near future world. The practical and scientific matters (like, do babies born to downsized adults grow up to be similarly small adults?) are not explained too thoroughly, but those matters are not ignored; you kind of have to roll with the film a bit and accept that those things have already been settled. Instead, the focus is on the knottier philosophical questions and the unexpected implications of downsizing. Why has this scientific breakthrough happened while people with chronic diseases still suffer? Should downsized people have the same rights as the natively-sized? Will governments use involuntary downsizing to tamp down undesirable segments of their populations?

The answer to that last question turns out to be a resounding yes, and we see its fallout in the form of Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau, giving the most forcefully charming performance of the year), a Vietnamese dissident who has been downsized against her will and then smuggled into America in a TV box. As we and Paul are introduced to her life, Downsizing makes it clear that it believes that humans are wired to always separate themselves into separate classes, no matter what utopian urges drive us. As she and Paul become entwined, the underlying, most burning question of this film becomes clear: is it better to specifically attempt to save the entire species, or to focus on being a good person in your own particular space? The resolution that Payne offers is a little pat, but not dishonest. Miniaturized or not, utopian or practical, whatever your station in life, no matter how weird things get, you have to give yourself the room to be a good person.

Downsizing is Recommended If You Like: Being John Malkovich, Captain Fantastic, Robot & Frank

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Utopias