Dir. by Alexander Payne.

Alexander Payne has always been a director that shows the common sides of America. His movies remove glamour and instead the viewer receives warm and cozy aesthetics. Payne tells intimate aspects of the characters by showing how “normal” their daily routine tends to be.

The Holdovers does that and then some. In this gem of a film, Payne teams again with Paul Giamatti. Here, Giamatti plays a cranky professor at an all male boarding school. During the holidays, he’s forced to babysit the students left behind. The other people (besides the students) at the school are the cook and the janitor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVa20liGRUM

Payne gives us characters that go through an arc while revealing intimate aspects to each other in forced social settings. Settings that are common during the holidays: parties, traditions, memories, presents. The cinematographer also does a great job in creating heartwarming visuals with the snow mixed in with close-ups.

The Holdovers is a movie worth seeing because the characters show a wholesome complexity that has been absent in movies for a very long time.