THB #400: The Holdovers

The Holdovers is Alexander Payne’s 8th feature film in his 27-year career as a feature film director. For perspective, he directed his first feature 4 years after Quentin Tarantino and is 1 film behind him.

Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants, Nebraska, Downsizing.

Payne has always been a filmmaker whose work is always very specifically placed while also being disconnected from specific times.

Citizen Ruth is more of this moment in American history than it was in 1996 (which is probably why it wasn’t a bigger hit). Election is not period, but Tracey Flick lives in a time-zone in the past and the future of that moment. About Schmidt is timeless. Sideways lives in the bubble of wine-ers. The Descendants isolates itself in Hawaii, where it has a timelessness. Nebraska is about that child/parent relationship that is eternal. And Downsizing was a bit of a step out, quite specifically looking to the future, but is as much about challenging the drudgery of life and any of his films.

The Holdovers takes us to the place we have always known, from the work, that Alexander Payne loves… the intimate social satires of the 70s. Those films of Hal Ashby and Michael Ritchie and Paul Mazursky and Arthur Hiller have always been a clear touchstone in Payne’s work.

The Holdovers is literally set in 1970, the year in which Payne himself was just 9. But it is steeped in the period, starting with the Focus Features animated logo made for this film (there was no Focus Features in 1970). The first act of the film is a 70s romp… the boarding school… the wall-eyed, emotionally-stilted, verbally-clever-but-abusive teacher… and the hero of our tale, Angus Tully, the angry, disrespectful kid who is boiling over. The school also features the dumb rich kid, the mean rich kid, the decent rich kid, the smarter younger kids, the head of school who can’t quite keep his beliefs clear, the wise kitchen manager, and the kind, sweet assistant to the head of school.

The winter is a character in the story. The buildings of the school are characters in the story. The idea of the Christmas holiday, in all its beauty and ennui, is a major character in the story.

And the music… the score is credited to Mark Orton, who also scored Nebraska for Payne (though there is one very brief riff that seems to reference Rolfe Kent), but the movie is thick with songs, breaking from the period only with the Damien Jurado’s “Silver Joy,” which is reminiscent of Simon & Garfunkel “scoring” The Graduate or Cat Stevens “scoring” Harold & Maude. Yet, from The Allman Bros to Guy Lombardo, the film never feels like a greatest hits album, which is a feat.

The cinematography by Eigil Bryld is magnificent. The image above doesn’t fully capture the beauty of this shot on screen. (I photographed it off the TV.) There is a moving shot in the film, driving towards a snowy landscape with trees on either side that is one of my very favorite images of the year, if not years.

My overall take on the movie is that it is Payne in a minor key… which is not, in any way, to damn the film with faint praise. I mean it quite literally… and lovingly.