As annoyingly cliched as it might be when someone (usually after a deep, dramatic sigh) complains that they just don’t make them like they used to, it doesn’t make it any less true. In fact, it’s truer than ever right now, with streamers focused more on smartphone content than movies for cinema screens. When someone actually does make one like they used to, it’s hard not to get a little moony.
So, indebted to his noble nostalgic mission, director and cinema restoration enthusiast Alexander Payne has made a film set in the 70s that could also have been made in the 70s, from the more gimmicky vintage idents at the start right down to the overall aesthetic, from camera angles to fades to casting choices to film stock. But The Holdovers, which premiered at this year’s Telluride film festival in Colorado before heading to Toronto, is far from pastiche; it’s a sensitively acted and delicately written comedy-drama that has a life all of its own. Not only it does it recall intimate, character-led films of the time, but also the sorts of 90s and noughties Miramax indies that broke out at Sundance and charmed all those who saw them on their route to the Oscars (it was in fact acquired for distribution by the once-illustrious ex-Weinstein company before production).
