The Holdovers

Alexander Payne's latest film, The Holdovers, is just as good as you've heard. The film takes place in December and January 1970-71 at the Barton Academy--a boarding school for boys located in chilly New England. Honestly, that's just catnip for me right there. I love a good boarding school movie. Especially a boy's boarding school and especially in New England. Give me Dead Poets Society or give me death!

Paul Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a professors of classics (Ancient Greek and Roman shit) and the most curmudgeonly man who ever curmudgeoned. If you look up "curmudgeon" in the dictionary, Paul Hunham's picture is next to the definition. This man is cranky. This man is pedantic. This man is no-nonsense. This man is condescending. This man has a lazy eye, so the students call him "Walleye". 

Might this man also have a secret heart of gold underneath his gruff and cranky exterior? Might the reason this man is SOOO curmudgeonly have something to do with his own history of being treated as "less than" by others? I think you know the answer to that!

Paul is tapped to stay on campus over Christmas break to essentially babysit the "holdovers"--the group of students who, for various reasons, are not going home for Christmas. This includes Angus Tully (brand new to the screen and already a star, Dominic Sessa, truly a revelation in this role), a rich, smart, arrogant kid who was originally scheduled to go on a luxury vacation to Saint Kitts with his mom and stepdad, only for said mom and stepdad to cancel the vacation at the last minute to go on a belated honeymoon instead, leaving Angus high and dry at Barton. In the care of his sworn nemesis, Professor Hunham. 

There are other boys left behind too, but they all end up getting permission to leave with one kid's dad to go on a ski trip. Of course, Angus' parents can't be reached to give their permission, so he is stuck with Paul as well as Barton's cafeteria manager, Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph, wonderful in this role), who is mourning the loss of her son who died in Vietnam. What a jolly bunch these three make!

The thing is, you know what's going to happen in The Holdovers. Paul, Mary, and Angus are three very lonely misfits who have been "left behind" not just at the school but in life. To me, Mary represents the loneliness of grief, Angus represents the loneliness of anger, and Paul represents the loneliness of bitterness. And while we can tell that Mary will be ok--she is still open to connecting with others and still has a sense of humor despite her enormous loss--we're not so sure about Paul and Angus. Angus is young, but presumably on the path towards becoming a man like Paul: a man who has whittled down his life and dreams into the bare minimum because to hope for more would be too hurtful to bear. 

As Angus and Paul get to know each other over the course of the Christmas break that wasn't, they begin to lower their defenses and see the commonalities between them. If I'm being a little vague, it's because I don't want to give anything away which would diminish the emotional impact of watching The Holdovers without knowing all the details. Trust me, it's good. You can take my word on that. And you WILL probably cry, so have the tissues nearby.

But the movie is a tearjerker in the best way possible: it's cathartic. It's filled with love and hope without being schmaltzy or sentimental. It's about how broken people can heal each others' broken parts. It's also a really funny movie with immaculate vintage vibes. It's kind of like if Harold and Maude and Rushmore smoked a little weed (just a little) and then had a baby together. That baby would be The Holdovers. 

There's not much else to say. If you haven't seen The Holdovers yet, I really, really, really recommend it. It's a rare movie that I think most people who watch it will like, if not love, and find something within it that resonates. 

Grade: A

All of Us Strangers

Spoilers in this review

The experience of watching Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers feels a little like when you are just starting to get sick and have a mild fever and those body aches where it kind of hurts to touch your own skin, but in a weirdly good way? The film is dreamy, achy, intimate, sad, erotic, lonely, oddly comforting, and deeply personal. "Intimate" I think is the key word here: All of Us Strangers is an incredibly intimate film, featuring a performance of almost unbearable vulnerability by Andrew Scott (probably best known for playing the Hot Priest in season 2 of Fleabag...or Moriarity in the Sherlock series). 

Scott plays Adam, a 40-something gay man living in a nearly empty high-rise in London. Adam is a writer but appears to struggle with writer's block. He also seems to never leave his apartment. It's a very lonely life for Adam. One night, 20-something Harry (Paul Mescal) shows up drunk at Adam's door and propositions him--for sex, a drink, or just some company--but Adam turns him away.  

Adam later takes a train to his old childhood home and finds his parents living there. The only thing is...Adam's parents died in a car crash when he was 12. And yet, here they are, inviting him in and telling him how grown up he is. In fact, he's older now than they were when they died. The movie doesn't explain how this is possible. It just is.

When Adam sees Harry again, he invites him back to his apartment and they talk for a while and then have sex. There's an interesting conversation where Harry asks Adam if he's queer and Adam says "Yes. Well, gay. Queer was always such an insult when I was growing up." Harry explains that "gay" was the insult when *he* was growing up, which is why he prefers "queer". I don't know why this conversation struck me, other than the fact that it comments on how time passes, yet things still kind of stay the same. And time being amorphous and circular is definitely a theme in this movie. 

The next time Adam visits his house, he comes out to his mom (Claire Foy), who doesn't insult him but is clearly upset, having always imagined Adam getting married and having children. When Adam later talks to his dad (Jamie Bell), he seems less upset by Adam's being gay, especially since he claims he always knew Adam was different (I think "fruity" is the actual descriptor he uses). 

Having never had to come out to my parents (at least not for being gay), I can't speak personally to how realistic these conversations between Adam and his dead parents are, but based on some opinions I've read about the film they're very realistic. I can, however, speak to the weird dance you do with your parents once you're both adults, where the power dynamic has changed but the emotional dynamic hasn't. They don't have any control over your life and choices anymore, but you still want their approval and love. There's also a weird thing where you can acknowledge the mistakes they made in raising you (in Adam's case it was his dad never comforting him when he cried alone in his room as a child) and they understand the mistakes they made too, and can maybe even apologize, but you can't go back and change it...so all you can do is forgive. And because you, too, are an adult...you kind of get it. Because at that point you've made mistakes. But you still feel wounded because they were your parents. Am I rambling? My point is: interacting with your parents as an adult is complex, even (especially?) if you love them. 

All of those feelings and conversations are explored in All of Us Strangers, which is why I have a catch in my throat thinking about the movie even now. That Adam gets a version of closure with his parents--getting to come out to them, getting an acknowledgement of their regrets and mistakes, and getting a final "I love you" from a dad who could barely say it in life but is free to say it in death--ooof, this is truly powerful stuff. 

The ending of the movie is fairly divisive and I will give an EXTRA SPOILER WARNING before I reveal it. 

Adam comes home from his final visit with his parents and goes to Harry's apartment to find Harry dead in his bedroom--wearing the same clothes and carrying the same liquor bottle as when he originally knocked on Adam's door that first night and was turned away. This revelation was devastating to me, feeling intense empathy toward Adam who literally just lost his parents a second time. But wait, Harry's ghost is still in his apartment. He and Adam go back to Adam's apartment and curl up in bed together, the camera pulling further and further out as the song "The Power of Love" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood plays (it's a VERY cheesy song, just FYI).

So, there's a lot to unpack here...Harry was presumably dead all along which means...Adam had sex with a ghost?! Yes, that's definitely where my mind went. But one idea that didn't occur to me later until a friend pointed it out is that maybe Adam was also dead, or dying, or in purgatory. Some version of being not alive. Which would explain how he could see his dead parents and also other weird things like why the high-rise apartment was empty, other than Harry and Adam. 

Personally, I like this interpretation a lot. I like the idea that maybe the afterlife is when we can right the wrongs of the past or have closure with loved ones. Maybe Adam was in purgatory and purgatory is just a place where you finish some inter-dimensional, cosmic business and then move on and heaven is curling up with the cute boy from apartment 6D. There's this whole "we're all part of the universe and the universe is all part of us" vibe that I kinda dig. 

Some people felt that the ending was depressing, but it didn't feel that way to me. It felt safe and warm. In fact, the entire movie feels safe and warm despite having the potential to be emotionally devastating. It's a film about grief and loneliness and time passing...but it's also about connection and choosing love. Circling back to my analogy above, it's like that warm, achy feeling you get when you're sick, but you know your mom will be in soon with some chicken noodle soup and a cold compress for your forehead: All of Us Strangers is a good ache. A good ache and a good movie I can't wait to watch again. 

Grade: A

Just a man and his ghost bae. 

Stuff I watched in...January, 2024

Society of the Snow (2023)

Directed by J.A. Bayona, this Spanish film tells the tale of a plane that crashed in the Andes Mountains in 1972 while carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and their friends and family. It's hard to believe, but 16 people (out of 45 on the plane) survived after more than two months trapped on the snowy, desolate mountain range. 

If people know about the Andes flight disaster, the most likely think "Oh, that's the rugby team where they had to eat the dead to survive." And indeed, that's exactly what they had to do. There's a great video by Caitlin Doughty about how the cannibalism among the survivors of this disaster "feels different" than other famous cannibalism stories, such as the Donner Party. That's probably because it was handled in a fashion that was both orderly (two of the survivors prepared the meat so that those who ate it didn't need to know who they were eating) and also sacred (the mostly-Catholic group likened it to the Eucharist in order the make moral sense of their actions).

The whole cannibalism thing is handled really well in Society of the Snow, which is brutal to watch but also filled with hope and the triumph of the human will to survive. It shows how the survivors had to work together to survive--not just physically, but spiritually. They told one another not to give up, to keep looking for solutions, to keep helping one another instead of going down the "every man for himself" route. Ultimately, the 16 people who survived owe their lives to the bravery and leadership of Nando Parrado and Robert Canessa, who literally walked out of the damn mountains to find help. 

Society of the Snow is a movie that will have you on the edge of your seat, even if you already know the outcome. The story of the Andes flight disaster is fascinating and Bayona does it justice.

Grade: A-

***

The Underground Railroad (2021)

Based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Underground Railroad is a sort of magical realism take on slavery in the Antebellum South and one woman's determination to find freedom. This 10-part miniseries was created and directed by Barry Jenkins and it shows: Jenkins' signature dreamy, reflective style infuses this often horrific and seemingly hopeless series. Jenkins finds the beauty in the connections Cora Randall (Thuso Mbedu) makes during her quest for freedom.   

Make no mistake, this is a difficult show to watch, and not just for the depictions of gruesome violence and dehumanization. The Underground Railroad captures the struggle for enslaved people and those escaping slavery to find not just a safe place to lay their heads, but a home. Cora's journey is not just a physical one, but an existential one. In Jenkins' gentle hands, the series is bearable to watch, but just only. 

The one criticism I have is that a few of the episodes are slow, but given how contemplative the show as a whole is, the slowness is more of a feature than a bug. And it builds towards a powerful and heartbreaking finale. A tough series, but well worth the watch. 

Grade: A-

***

Sexy Beast (2000)

Sexy Beast is a very unique take on a heist movie. In fact, it's a good heist movie for people who don't like heist movies (yours truly) because the actual heist is like 15 minutes of the film. Most of the movie focuses on the lead up and on a truly scary performance by Ben Kingsley as Don Logan, a British mobster and all-around psychopath. 

Kingsley isn't the main character though. That would be Ray Winstone as Gal Dove, a retired career criminal who lives in Spain with his wife and friends. It's the classic "every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in" thing. Teddy Bass (Ian McShane), a London-based crime boss, has Don Logan travel to Spain to pull Gal out of retirement for a job. Gal doesn't want to do it, but also feels like he can't say no to the violent and chaotic Don. 

I won't say what happens, but the film, directed by Jonathan Glazer, is a thriller where the plot matters less than the relationships between the characters. It's a really good movie although probably not one I'll revisit often. It's good, but not great. 

Grade: B+

***

Liberty Heights (1999)

This coming of age film takes place in Baltimore in the 1950s and follows two Jewish brothers, Ben (Ben Foster) and Van (Adrian Brody) as they navigate antisemitism and racial desegregation. Hijinks ensue. I really wanted to like this movie more than I did--it's fine? There are just better coming of age movies. I will say that David Krumholtz is in this film and he really makes any movie he's in better. There's a scene where he and Ben are visiting a rich person's house and Yussel (Krumholtz's character) keeps pointing out how old the furniture is how the gorgeous oak dining table has scratches on it and is probably hard to clean, just completely misunderstanding that this is what "old money" looks like for WASPs. It's a pretty funny scene. 

If you like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you'll probably find something to enjoy about Liberty Heights.

Grade: B

***