The Holdovers
Heart-warming drama from Alexander Payne (Sideways) about a grumpy history teacher who has to stay at school during the Christmas holidays to supervise a rebellious adolescent who can’t go home. A Christmas classic in the making. Winner of the Oscar for best supporting actress.
Barton men don’t lie. This is just one of the many rules Professor Hunham takes much too seriously as he hands out poor grades at an elite boarding school in 1971. As he dismisses the politics that come along with educating the children of people in high places, he’s punished by the headmaster who gives him a most undesirable assignment for the winter break: to stay at the school and supervise the students who are unable to go home.
Hunham resolves to have the students suffer with him. Among them, fifteen-year-old Angus, bright but belligerent, makes a ruckus. Teacher and student become foes, antagonizing one another and tiring themselves out, as Mary, the school cafeteria manager, observes from the side-lines, herself alone after recently losing her son in the Vietnam War. As the petulant pair succumb to the depressing truth that they’ve got little else but each other this holiday season, Professor Hunham starts to soften up and they begin to see themselves in one another. (source: www.tiff.net)