Alexander Payne

Film Review: The Holdovers is a lived-in comedy that crackles in its quieter moments of reflection

After the misstep that was 2017’s ambitious Downsizing, writer/director Alexander Payne returns to more familiar territory in The Holdovers. Familiar in the sense that the high-school setting brings to mind his biting 1999 black comedy Election, his lead, Paul Giamatti, is a pitch-perfect educator, like his 2004 standout Sideways, and the dialogue peppered throughout is…

Peter Gray

Interview: Da’Vine Joy Randolph on navigating grief and class in The Holdovers; “There’s a privilege in showing emotion. And my character doesn’t have that privilege.”

The Holdovers reunites Sideways’ director Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti in a holiday story of three lonely, shipwrecked people at a New England boarding school over winter break in 1970. Giamatti stars as Paul Hunham, a curmudgeonly instructor who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with…

Peter Gray

Interview: Paul Giamatti on his Golden Globe Award-winning role in The Holdovers, character quirks and inspiration, and if he thinks he’s become a better actor

The Holdovers reunites Sideways’ director Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti in a holiday story of three lonely, shipwrecked people at a New England boarding school over winter break in 1970. Giamatti, in his Golden Globe Award-winning role, stars as Paul Hunham, a curmudgeonly instructor who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to…

Peter Gray