Nearly 20 years after Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti teamed up for “Sideways,” which resulted in perhaps Payne’s best film and Giamatti’s finest screen performance, they’re reunited for the wintry character study “The Holdovers,” with Giamatti once again turning in masterful work as a hard-tippling misanthrope who is well aware he’s usually the least popular person in any room he occupies and isn’t necessarily concerned with making the changes necessary to alter such perceptions.
Although at times overly talky, “The Holdovers’ on balance is a charming and smart comedy/drama that is set in 1970 and actually looks like it was made in 1970, from the scratchy opening titles through the grainy-looking visuals, which were achieved through a combination of old school lenses and digital post-production magic. Hal Ashby (“Harold and Maude,” “The Last Detail”) would have been proud.
