The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne and scored by Mark Orton, is receiving Academy Award level reviews coming up to its Oct 27 release by Focus Features.
The film follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a prestigious American school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).
The Holdovers will play in select theaters October 27th, followed by a wide release on November 10th. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was the runner-up for the Audience Award.
Deadline calls the film “movie magic”, and “ funny, sad, witty, poignant, filled with snark and heart and great acting”, with “Mark Orton’s wonderful music score setting the tone with a Fred Karlin-ish vibe that seems perfect for the snowy story set at Barton Academy”.
Next Best Picture said that “The use of holiday-themed songs and Mark Orton’s lovely score which feels plucked directly from a decades-old movie, add to the atmosphere, placing the audience right back in the past.”