Alexander Payne’s delicately modulated crowd-pleaser The Holdovers is as impressive for what it does do as it is for what it doesn’t. The story of a man, woman and teen forced to spend Christmas together could have been soaked in syrup, a pat chosen family narrative where everyone easily sinks into their conveniently marked role, leaving the holidays as a dysfunctional but loving new unit.
And while there are lessons learned and bridges built, there’s also a refusal to succumb to the saccharine this setup suggests, a clever weave away from expected formula, trope-adjacent characters elevated to real, living, difficult people. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Payne balked at those using the word “cosy” to describe it, saying that the word “nauseates” him and instead telling IndieWire that part of the inspiration for the festive setting is that a “very large percentage of suicides happen” between Christmas and new years.
