About

This absorbing "serious comedy" is set in 1970 in a prestigious New England boarding school for boys, Barton Academy. Over the Christmas holidays the school is eerily empty, apart from a few pupils who cannot go home for various reasons – the 'holdovers'. One teacher has been selected by the principal to look after the boys – Paul Hunham, played by Paul Giamatti. Hunham is a bachelor who has spent his entire life associated with the college, and is an old-fashioned stickler for discipline and academic standards. He has been told to look after the rowdy holdovers as a punishment by the principal because he flunked one entitled boy who would otherwise have gone to a prestigious Ivy League college and thus avoided the draft for Vietnam – a common mechanism at the time for the rich. And, naturally, the boy's father would stop donating money to the school.

One of the holdovers is Angus Tully (played by Dominic Sessa) – a smart but sullen boy with a troubled background. The other member of staff here over Christmas is Mary, the Afro-American head chef (played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph). She got a job at Barton to try to secure her son a scholarship, but when she couldn't afford the fees he was shipped out to Vietnam, where he was killed. Mary still works at the college in order to be close to her son's memory.

These three troubled individuals gradually learn to accept and support each other, while director Alexander Payne illustrates his thoughts on how privilege or class determine how we deal with grief and the obstacles of life. To this end, the film has a warm glow and a similar feel to the films of the era it was set in – the late sixties/early seventies.

The Holdovers has been garnered with a hatful of awards - 134 worldwide - including: Paul Giamatti (Golden Globe for best actor); Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Oscar for best supporting actress; Golden Globe for best supporting actress; New York Film Critics Circle Award for best supporting actress); Dominic Sessa (Critics Choice Movie Award for best young performer); plus David Hemingson (Writers' Guild of America Award for best original screenplay).

The film marks another successful collaboration between director Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti, after their hit film Sideways (2004).

Non-member tickets are £5 (full-time students £3) and can be purchased in advance from The Exchange's Box Office online at http://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/events, by telephone 020 8240 2399 or in person.

For further information on RFS and the programme of films, please visit
http://www.richmondfilmsoc.org.uk