Deborah Ross

Sincere, heartfelt, true: The Holdovers reviewed

Rest assured that this uninspirational teacher film never goes all Dead Poets Society

Sincere, heartfelt, true: Paul Giamatti (Paul Hunham) and Dominic Sessa (Angus Tully) in The Holdovers. Credit: Seacia Pavao/© 2023 Focus Features LLC 
issue 20 January 2024

The first thing to say about Alexander Payne’s latest, The Holdovers, is that it’s not so much an inspirational teacher film as an uninspirational teacher film. You should know that before attending the cinema otherwise you might sit throughout in the brace position, fearing it could go all Dead Poets Society at any moment. It doesn’t. No one plunders Tennyson for motivational slogans even once. Instead, it feels sincere, heartfelt, true. You may even come away wishing  you’d had an uninspirational teacher when you were at school.

The year is 1970 and it’s filmed as if it had been made in 1970 with static on the soundtrack, desaturated colours and retro titles. The setting is Barton Academy, a New England boarding school for posh boys, where Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) has been (uninspiringly) teaching ancient history since forever. He is not charismatic. He is acerbic and bitter. He despises his students, who are rich, entitled ‘troglodytes’ and is exhausted by their mediocracy.

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