The Holdover's Review
How many boys do you know who have had their hands blown off? Barton boys don’t go to Vietnam. They go to Yale or Dartmouth or Cornell, whether they deserve to or not.
Christmas may be well over by now but this is the Christmas version of the Dead Poets Society, where the teacher is grumpy man and the student is an asshole. While the cook is a grieving mother. These characters all bring different experiences into the Christmas break which causes clashes against one another but also a strange familiar bond.
The plot takes all three of these characters and puts them in a boarding school over the winter break. The youngest convinces his teacher to take them to Boston so that he can visit his father at the institution he is placed, where he has been trying to escape all break.
Mm-hmm. He hated you. He said you were a real asshole.
We see some of the best acting from the characters I have watched on a movie. The emotional performance from Da’Vine Joy Randolph gives a subtle and strong act with such a difficult emotion. Mary suffers with lose the of her son and feels guilty for not being able to send him to a good school, which lead to him going to the army.
Paul’s arc in the movie is nothing as you would expect, many would have wanted a profound experience but I think the simplicity of him being fired and then smiling shows that the movie did give him the chance to grow and have more courage to leave. We know that Barton academy is his safe place, from his dad and how they took him in after the was kicked out of university.
It’s interesting to note that ironically, he is stuck in the past in both his life and teaching. His classic history talks are some of the most interesting monologues from the movie and his lessons on history are notable to take away.
Pauls life was essentially ruined because of he couldn’t defend himself against an upper-class student who copied his work. This shows that these upper-class characters never think about anyone else, allowing others to suffer.
There's nothing new in human experience, Mr. Tully. Each generation thinks it invented debauchery or suffering or rebellion, but man's every impulse and appetite from the disgusting to the sublime is on display right here all around you. So, before you dismiss something as boring or irrelevant, remember, if you truly want to understand the present or yourself, you must begin in the past. You see, history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present.
Class is notable throughout the movie. We see the students at the boarding school are rich and never need to think about fighting in the Vietnam war, instead they are able to bypass the draft and go to university. Where characters like the Curtis and the townies are not able to do so. We see Agnus be disrespectful towards a veteran who lost his arm during the war, whereas Paul buys him a drink afterwards.
Paul hates these boys because of their money and their nativity to the war. He knows that they won’t ever become soldiers and that people who don’t deserve to die will have to take their place because they are poor. These boys nor the teachers understand the significance of the loss of Curtis has caused, but also what he would have gone through.
4/5
letterboxd: izzyjames04
Other recommendations:
Sing street (2016)
Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
The Kings of the Summer (2013)