THE HOLDLOVERS – LIFE LESSONS
Type: comedy drama ✦✦✦
Direction: Alexander Payne. With Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa, Carrie Preston
Three pariahs, a rude professor who has had a bad time in life and is rightly detested by the students, a cook mourning the death of her son and a student the family doesn’t care about they are condemned to spend the Christmas holidays of 1970 together, three solitudes in a gigantic desert college in snowy New England.
From a very classic premise, Payne, a filmmaker specializing in sentimentalism, creates a film that is more sincere than his average, with brilliant dialogues, impeccable performers (the lanky Sessa is in his first film) and a mélange of tones that could not be taken for granted. Flowers are born from the forced cohabitation of three marginals.
From left, Dominic Sessa, Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in the film “The Holdovers” (photo by Seacia Pavao © 2023 Focus Features LLC).
LEGEND
✦ modest
✦✦ good
✦✦✦ excellent
✦✦✦✦ masterpiece
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