THE HOLDOVERS

THE HOLDOVERS is a Christmas story set at a prestigious New England boarding school, where a curmudgeonly history teacher, Paul Hunham, is forced to spend the holidays supervising the “holdovers,” the students and staff who are not returning home for Christmas break. Most of the holdovers are invited on a ski trip by one of their fathers, but one, a bright but incorrigible student with a difficult home life, named Angus, cannot get permission from his parents in time to leave. Thus, Hunham, Angus, and the grieving school cook, Mary, are the school’s sole residents for Christmas. Despite their many foibles and initial misgivings, the three holdovers grow to admire and appreciate one another.

Crafted in a subtle “home movie” style, THE HOLDOVERS transports the audience effortlessly back to 1970. It’s a time when, though many men in their late teens had left, voluntarily or not, to fight in the Vietnam War, the sons of “old money” New Englanders were receiving a premier education at institutions like Barton, the setting of acclaimed director, Alexander Payne’s latest movie. Hunham’s lack of friendship or relationship, Angus’ depression and anti-social tendencies due to his dysfunctional family, and Mary’s grief for her late son, Charles, a Barton student who died in Vietnam, all mesh together perfectly, creating heart-wrenching drama and belly-laughing comedy in equal measure. These three strongly written characters grow and evolve together beautifully.

THE HOLDOVERS promotes an important message about respecting other people, even if they are different. The three main characters come to see the humanity in one another, even while

seeing each other’s flaws front and center. Although this idea is valuable for Christians to learn and remember, the severe foul language and the characters’ other moral lapses in THE HOLDOVERS warrant extreme caution.