Back in 2004, Paul Giamatti and Alexander Payne teamed up for one of the best movies of the 2000s, Sideways, which earned several Academy Award nominations and a win for Payne’s Best Adapted Screenplay. Nearly 20 years later, the two have come together again for The Holdovers, which has been garnering Oscar buzz since making the festival rounds at Toronto and Telluride ahead of its limited release in October. Now the Christmas drama is hitting theaters around the country, and critics are raving about the coming-of-age holiday flick.
The Holdovers centers around a teacher, student and cook in the 1970s who form an unlikely bond while staying at their New England boarding school over a two-week winter break. Alongside Paul Giamatti as the strict history professor Paul Hunham, Dominic Sessa makes his feature film debut as the rebellious student Angus Tully. Da'Vine Joy Randolph plays Mary Lamb, the cook who has suffered the loss of her son. Let’s see what the critics say, starting with Emily Murray of GamesRadar. The critic rates the film a perfect 5 out of 5 stars, writing:
