The Holdovers | Pining for Family

For many, Christmas is a word entirely detached from its Christian origins, instead encapsulating the final few carefree weeks of the whole fifty two. Picture it - the trees line your streets with snowflake-y frosting, your fireplace’s tangerine hue cascades roofward upon the plastered walls of your cosy childhood abode, and the cream atop your hot chocolate has already melted because you’ve spent far too long bathing in the saccharine of the whole thing. Though it's the wintriest time of the year, no soul with a home could claim the cold ruined their holiday season, as that very climate draws our bodies closer in a collective comfort that extends from the physical to the immaterial. Christmastide sees the temporary halting of any strife to ascertain the aspects of life-living that fulfill us the most - warm hugs, and even warmer mugs.

It’s incredible what humanity has managed to cultivate over the generations, to find snug oranges, hot reds and complimentary greens in opposition to the cold whites of the outside. The entire aesthetic of the festive period is one so delicate you’d believe it to be hand crafted, and I find that to be why movies that embrace it function so incredibly when taking on more consequential ideas. Whilst we all love those silly family classics like Home Alone or Elf, it’s those true filmmaking masterclasses such as It’s A Wonderful Life or Eyes Wide Shut that are so dialled in on subtext and image respectively, and that use the familial core of Christmas to the script’s advantage.

Kubrick and Capra can take Donner and Blitzen for today, however. In favour of the comedic, Payne is here with The Holdovers - where the first film sees its protagonist a millionaire in companionship and the latter’s surrounded by absurd decadence hiding within the lights and pines, script writer David Hemingson was concerned with critiquing the very core of the whole thing, understanding that to assume every soul harbours a family and the requisite wealth for a holly jolly Christmas, would be to simplify very real problems that many in society have felt restrained by for as long as the holiday has been celebrated.

The Holdovers exists to tear down the facade of spirit that many present in the face of their festive discomfort. For some, family is not an option, whether through bleak circumstance or inaction from fear. Crooked teacher Paul is the subject of multiple physical conditions such that romance was lost on him at an early age, though introversion holds him back in the present - student Angus’ extroversion functions the opposite, where misery inflicted on his mother is instead passed onto the boy as opposed to shared between the pair - and cook Mary had her family cruelly taken from her upon the death of her son. It’s these reasons that see the trio ‘holding over’ at Barton Academy, though there’s notable additions to the characters’ reasons that are essential to Hemingson’s intention with this discomforting, joyful script. 

Though Paul isn’t one to head out of campus often, holdover duty was instructed for him as punishment from the head master for lack of co-operation in school politics. He may be reminiscent of festive media grumps like Scrooge or Potter through his mannerisms and sarky disdain for those he operates with, but it’s established early on that the History whizz has a sympathetic side, one that understands that the honour code of many privately funded schools is not consistently applicable, that sons of rich donors are given a pass or two upon request. As students begin filtering out for the holidays, he grows more frustrated at their entitlement - whilst his attitude is a common comedically played one in Xmas flicks, it’s refreshing to see a character like Paul Hunham take centre stage, as his traits simmer so faint below his thick exterior that, the further he’s peeled back, the more we understand of him and his desperation for genuine human connection despite his physical limitations, not the performative, monetary kind he sees at Barton.

Angus wants nothing more than to escape the uptight wintry wasteland, smiling through the winding down days until a phonecall sees his mother turn him away. Our perception of his relationship with his father unravels alongside Paul’s concealed sympathies, allowing for a dynamic that is topped off by Mary’s admittance that her choice to hold over is out of love for her son, not wanting to leave their final place of bonding so soon. 

Where Paul finds frustration in the privileged’s mockeries of Barton, Mary is more directly a victim of this chasm in class, as her son was required to join the military to afford the college education that many are largely gifted on a silver platter. The Holdovers does not shy away from this discrepancy, that private schools and many of their attendees do not act in accordance with the honour code they wear with such false pride. If one is a critic and another is a victim, Angus is the odd middle ground, a boy that Paul eventually discovers is as three dimensional as himself. He is both social and alone, athletic and clumsy, crude and caring, lucky and unlucky. There are more than enough laughs to go around in Payne’s film that you often forget how damaged these three people are, how staining their mid-winter blues feel against the fuzzy interiors.

Here, Hemingson has flipped the standard Christmas script on its head, where the cold acts as true isolation from the warmth a family reunion would provide, in reflection of this trio’s differing circumstances. Ultimately, their strife is shared, as one way or another, they are all without family, a reality for many celebrators that I’ve seen few December-set films attempt to showcase. Though it’s not quite a found family, three platonic friendships are soon born, each somewhat filling a desperate void in the other’s lives.

For my money, this is how you weave a true Christmas narrative, of going on a journey with unlikely companions and finding that needle of happiness in the snow stack. It’s why The Holdovers feels so singular in how it harbours such a strong sense of merry melancholy that continues to be felt across the runtime, despite its crackly look and soft 70’s feel. It’s akin to sitting alone at a party, and you know you don’t feel how you should, that there’s a little grey cloud lingering above you - but by the end of the night, you’ve had a decent ol’ time. 

Written By Jack Mortimer | IG: @jackcmortimer | LB: jackcmortimer