'The Holdovers' with Paul Giamatti shows the 'dark side' of Christmas

If “The Holdovers” looks like a cozy movie you'd watch after Thanksgiving dinner, well, that’s exactly the point.

Set in snow-covered 1970s New England, the bittersweet comedy follows an acerbic ancient history teacher named Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) who gets stuck looking after prep school kids who can’t go home for Christmas. With its retro title cards, grainy visuals, and soundtrack of folk-rock staples by Cat Stevens and Labi Siffre, director Alexander Payne (“Election”) hopes to capture the tenderness and melancholy of his favorite films growing up.

“I love movies from that period. I still get a special feeling when I watch them,” says Payne, citing “Paper Moon” and “Harold and Maude” as inspirations. “I wish I had been a ‘70s director, so this is kind of the next best thing. I got to pretend I was.”

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'The Holdovers' looks at the 'dark side' of Christmas cheer

“The Holdovers” (in select theaters now, nationwide Friday) is a love story of sorts between three lost souls searching for connection. There's Paul, an embittered academic with bad body odor and writer’s block; Angus (Dominic Sessa), a combative star student rebelling against his mom’s remarriage; and Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s world-weary head cook who’s mourning her soldier son killed in Vietnam.

The movie mines droll humor from its conventional Christmas setting. In one scene, Paul scolds a bowling alley Santa Claus for his historically inaccurate costume. He gifts stale cookies and Roman philosophy books to his companions and ventures out on Christmas morning to buy a Charlie Brown-style tree. USA TODAY’s Brian Truitt calls the film an “instant holiday classic” – a compliment that Payne politely accepts.

“I hope so,” Payne says. “Honestly, I don’t really watch Christmas movies. The only one I watch every year is ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ which is not just a good Christmas movie, but a genuine, towering masterpiece of a film.”

Thematically, “Holdovers” has many parallels to Frank Capra’s 1946 drama. In both films, characters grapple with shattered dreams, depression and alcoholism. Paul and Angus console each other about their troubled pasts and quietly acknowledge they’re on the same anti-depressants. Mary, meanwhile, self-medicates with a perpetual pour of whiskey.  

The holidays are "famously an emotionally resonant period of time," says screenwriter David Hemingson (ABC’s “Whiskey Cavalier”). “With family coming together, there’s a sense of happiness and good cheer. But also, people are oftentimes cataclysmically depressed and hurt themselves at Christmas. Because there's so many expectations riding behind Christmas, the dark side is anxiety and sadness. So I wanted to figure out how these people redeemed each other in the context of the holiday, but also in the broader context of their lives.”

Payne, 62, has explored similar themes of loneliness, failure and fulfillment in past films including "About Schmidt" (2002) and "Sideways" (2004). But critics have hailed "Holdovers" as one of his most "compassionate" and "big-hearted" movies yet, which he credits to his age.

"I hope that I'm able to look at life in general – and filmic characters – a little more deeply," Payne says. "We hope that with time, our sense of humanity broadens. Hopefully, not at the risk of losing edge or anger. But on some level, you always want your films to (ask), 'How can we live in a better world?' "

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The movie is a 'Sideways' reunion for Paul Giamatti and Alexander Payne

The character of Paul was written specifically for Giamatti, who last worked with Payne on the Oscar-winning “Sideways.”

“From the jump, it was always Paul,” says Hemingson, who was commissioned to write the movie. It was kismet: “I found out our dads knew each other in college. They were in the same seminar.”

The actor deftly delivers Paul’s loquacious one-liners, zinging his students as “snarling Visigoths” and “hormonal vulgarians.” But as he did with Miles, his self-loathing wine snob in “Sideways,” he also manages to find the character’s fragility.

“Paul’s an emotional guy, so he really feels those things,” Payne says. “And then he’s able to create that in an audience without being schmaltzy or sentimental – it all feels true. Miles and Mr. Hunham are both curmudgeons, so to see their heart shine through by the end of the picture is really nice.”

“Holdovers” is all but assured to return Payne and Giamatti to the Oscar race, with many awards pundits predicting nominations for best picture, director and actor, among others. The film is seen as a comeback of sorts for Payne, whose 2017 sci-fi satire “Downsizing” was a critical and commercial misfire. The big-budget, effects-heavy movie was written with Giamatti in mind, although he was eventually replaced by Matt Damon.

Looking back, “you always make mistakes and learn on every film," Payne says. "The only thing I learned from ‘Downsizing’ is that I did not enjoy doing special effects. They turned out pretty good, but I’m old-fashioned. I just like to make good old-fashioned movies about people.”