The Holdovers | 2023

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Watched @ home

Keywords

• Honorable

• Understandable

• Appreciation

• Kindness

• Respect

AI Summary

Set in a New England prep school in 1970, a curmudgeonly Classics teacher, Paul Hunham, is forced to chaperone the few students—the "holdovers"—who can't go home for the Christmas holidays.

He is left with one particularly troubled but brilliant student, Angus Tully, and the school's grieving head cook, Mary Lamb, who recently lost her son in Vietnam.

This unlikely trio forms a makeshift family, sharing moments of unexpected bonding and heartbreak as they navigate their isolation, grief, and abandonment over the snowy winter break. Hunham sacrifices his career to protect Angus after an unauthorized trip to Boston.

My thoughts

It instantly reminded me of the Dead Poets Society, but as I kept watching, I realised it does not have the emotional baggage you feel when watching the Dead Poets Society. Instead, I feel the movie is suitable for the following situations you find yourself in:

• You don't know what to watch, but you enjoy a well-produced film.

• It's rainy, gloomy

• It is Friday evening, Saturday evening, or Sunday evening

For me, however, it is Thursday evening, and the start of the movie surprised me. I selected the film because it had a label that it was my last chance to watch it [it would disappear from Netflix].

The film somehow feels nostalgic from the start. I know I have never seen it before, but the way it has been filmed feels like it could be on one of the DVDs that are stored away in my mother's attic.

I was astonished to find out the movie was released in 2023. I would have guessed somewhere between 2008-2013. I am furthermore also incredibly impressed by how the movie was produced, written, and cast.

The movie reminds me that every stranger can be a special person to me within just a matter of time. Compassion for each other and to leave judgment at the door. No matter, higher class, lower class, or working class, everybody is trying their best.

*EDIT

Incredible ending, it took me 4 separate days to watch this movie, but it was so worth it. Both characters were so misunderstood by me and so appreciated in the end.