Movie of the year: The Holdovers︱Movie Review
If You Haven’t Seen The New Movie By Alexander Payne, You Need To. NOW
By JackonReality
In a year of Barbenheimer, Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Killers of the Flower Moon, my Movie of the Year Choice (yes it's a little early, but besides Napoleon I don't see much competition in the future) might come as a surprise to many. The Holdovers looks like it will be the only flawless movie of the year. Yes, it is a flawless movie. The acting is superb, the jokes are hilarious, the emotion hits hard, the storyline is coherent. I can't see anything wrong with this movie, and it deserves all the acclaim it can get.
The most enjoyably surprising part of the movie is the emotion. Based on the trailers, I expected this movie to be a feel-good Christmas comedy (even though it came out in October). Yet I was mistaken. This movie, for the most part, is extremely sad. Each character has their own depressing backstory which is slowly revealed throughout the movie. The emotion of this film is carried out masterfully. It hits hard. Very hard.
And the emotion is genuine, too. This film never gets too syrupy. It maintained a formal, slice-of-life tone for its entire duration. And that was very fun to watch. This movie is about life. The good, the bad, and the ugly. To my surprise, it focused on the ugly. And I mean that in the best way possible.
The acting matches the emotion. Paul Giamatti delivers an exceptional performance as a teacher who has simply given up. He sees his students as uninspired, rich troglodytes. Yet over the course of the film, he develops a more hopeful outlook. Giamatti is witty and funny, and he fills all onlookers with joy (even if he’s in the middle of a depressing scene). Dominic Sessa delivers the next-best performance of the film. His character, Angus, is so well done. He is filled with hatred of his parents, and he is struggling with depression, yet he hides it under a mask of brutal honesty and comedic sarcasm. As a small detail, I can’t get Sessa’s sliding, irreverent smile out of my mind. He really did a brilliant job here, especially as a virtually unknown character. I sincerely hope he gets some more big jobs in the future. Finally, Da’Vine Joy Randolph should get an Oscar for best supporting actress. She plays her character, Mary, exceptionally, with hilarity and exuberant sadness. This can be said for most of the cast, yet Joy adds many more layers to her acting than the rest of the cast. All in all, the cast puts on a clinic in how to act in The Holdovers.
And I’m not done yet. This, despite being an extremely said movie, is an extremely funny movie. Little jokes are sprinkled here and there, and they never fall flat. Not only that, but The Holdovers’ is very, very smart. The storyline is coherent and surprising, and there were no obvious plot holes.
Overall, this is my favorite movie of the year, and I really hope anyone who reads this hurries to the theater (or to the television) to watch The Holdovers.
