The Holdovers

From Alexander Payne (Election, The Descendants) comes this warm and wintry dramedy, full of soft colours, sharp humour and rich, emotional storytelling. The film follows Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a grouchy classics teacher at an upscale New England boarding school tasked with looking after the students with nowhere to go over Christmas, as he learns to thaw with the help of one of his students and the school cook, a grieving mother. Set in and shot to resemble the 1970s (complete with artificial grain and nostalgic indulgences in decades-old story beats), The Holdovers is a cosy future Christmas classic (yes I know it’s showing in February, get off my back, blame Universal) guaranteed to appeal to fans of Hal Ashby or Dead Poets Society/Good Will Hunting kind of films

Tomas Caldon