by Web Master

The Holdovers, A film review by Dr Steve Taylor

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The Holdovers is delightfully crafted. In snow-bound Massachusetts, the staff of Barton Academy, an elite boarding school, prepare for the Christmas vacation. The year is 1970 and students excitedly pack for family time and beach vacations far from winter-bound classrooms.

Yet Christmas glitter is rarely always gold. The teacher of classics, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), is given the unwanted task of supervising students with nowhere to go. Alongside the school's head cook, Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), Paul finds his hands full with Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), one of Barton’s more challenging students.

Tensions simmer in a closed boarding school. A Boston road trip surfaces the histories of pain that confine Paul and Angus. With humour, tender care and an unexpected plot twist, they each find ways to step into new unknowns.

The acting is superb. Both Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti were deserved winners of Golden Globe Awards for their performances in The Holdovers. Director Alexander Payne’s carefully crafted plot allows each ofthe main characters to gather emotional intensity from broader cultural narratives. Mary’s grief is made poignant by the racial injustice embedded in American military history. Paul’s bitterness is fuelled by his experiences in the elitist politics of higher education. Toxic masculinities and boarding school cultures charge the anger of Angus. Hence The Holdovers provides another example of Payne’s ability to direct incisive portrayals of American society and culture.

The Holdovers provides plenty of resources for churches wanting to engage their communities in Christmas conversations. For social organisers seeking a family fun night, The Holdovers works across generations.

For worship leaders seeking to refresh their use of Christmas carols, Mark Orton's musical score includes seven well-known Christmas songs. The scenes in which carols like Silent Night and What Child Is This? are used offer contemporary material for connection and reflection.

For those needing to preach on John 1, the movie's first spoken words meditate on the place of words in music and life. For those seeking contemporary examples of redemption, The Holdovers is peppered with small moments of redemption.

The dictionary defines a holdover as a thing deferred. Over the twelve days of Christmas, Paul, Mary and Angus express the care and find the courage to face their pasts. Yet each also finds that in babies' bootees, family histories and skills repressed there are resources for unfolding futures.

As these main characters offer care and express courage, they bear witness to God, who is announced at Christmas as Emmanuel, God with us. Central in The Holdovers’ contemporary portrayal of redemption is sacrifice. Hence, this morality movie, warmed with humour, showcases the redemptions that are possible through the twelve days of Christmas.

Many of these moments of redemption are marked by musical cues, particularly Mark Orton's original composition Into the Unknown. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imut95oXlZE). A wordless tune, the sparse melody invokes movement. Christmas becomes a journey onward to face past pain and inward to embrace new beginnings.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is the author of "First Expressions" (2019) and writes widely in theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.