How The Holdovers became the secret threat of awards season

In 2023, cinema was back. So back, in fact, the Golden Globes even invented a new category just to praise the film that made the most money at the box office (Barbie, naturally). Billion-dollar box office returns, costumed screenings, real-life bombs dropped on in the desert, the cultural portmanteau that was ‘Barbenheimer’; cinema was pretty damn cinematic this year, and awards shows are commending offerings like Oppenheimer and Barbie as two of the year's biggest success stories.

But amidst the explosions of pink and, well, explosions, a small film is emerging through the smoke of the awards season mushroom cloud and revealing itself as a silent threat: Alexander Payne's The Holdovers.

At the Golden Globes, the movie took home two big awards – Paul Giamatti for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and Da'Vine Joy Randolph for Best Supporting Actress. It was also in the running for Best Musical or Comedy Film (it lost to Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things). Giamatti's speech – in which he complained about stairs and got a room of celebs to cheer about his son graduating from college – reminded the world that he's one of the most beloved and charismatic character actors out there.

If the first you've heard of The Holdovers is that it's winning a bunch of awards, we don't blame you. The triple-hander starring Giamatto, Randolph and brand-spanking newcomer Dominic Sessa (who was cast after an open audition at the school where the movie was filmed) was only released in November in the US, which makes sense for its Christmas setting, and won't be released until 19 January in the UK, which absolutely does not.

The film, set in 1970, follows dour, joyless teacher Paul Hunham (Giamatti) who is given the short straw to chaperone a student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), who is forced to stay at their remote private boarding school over the Christmas period. Also staying with them is Randolph's Mary Lamb, the school's cook who is grieving the loss of her son in Vietnam. It's a bittersweet and funny drama, the kind designed for elevated family Christmas viewing (again, make its UK January release make sense) and it's also pretty intimate, with rarely more than a few people on screen at the same time and its flashiest moments reserved for 70s-ifying its Boston set pieces.

Like its core theme, The Holdovers has become a bit of a slow-build audience love story, the kind of film travelling predominantly by word of mouth. It helps, of course, that it's a long-awaited reunion of Payne and Giamatti after Sideways (2004) became a surprise box office and award-season hit. But in a year dominated by cultural conversation around films that leaned into excess (The biggest budgets! The most stars! The just Ken!), it's barely made a ripple apart from its steady bubble to awards season glory.

US actress Da'Vine Joy Randolph poses with the award for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture for "The Holdovers" in the press room during the 81st annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on January 7, 2024. (Photo by Robyn BECK / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)ROBYN BECK/Getty Images

Even its smaller-budget contemporaries this award season, like Celine Song's bi-lingual love story Past Lives and Todd Haynes's take on tabloid spectacle, May December, have been boosted by the discourse bump, for better or for worse. The Holdovers, by comparison, has simmered noiselessly.

If you're a betting person, there will probably be no great gains by putting your money on Randolph to take home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. At this point, it's more or less a lock. Her quietly devastating performance is more than deserving of the award, but the category isn't quite as stacked as its actor counterpart, which will see a metaphorical bloody fistfight for victory between Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer), Charles Melton (May December) and Ryan Gosling (Barbie).

When it comes to Best Actor, however, it seemed like we were full steam ahead to make this Cillian Murphy's year for Oppenheimer. There was always the looming threat of Bradley Cooper flourishing in with a steal for his directorial feature Maestro, but eyes have mostly been locked on making this a Christopher Nolan sweep (which the Golden Globes delivered on). Murphy did take home the award for Best Actor in a Drama Film, but with Giamatti nabbing the equivalent for Comedy, there is still some hope.

And while The Holdovers lost out to Poor Things in Best Comedy Film, plenty of awards prognosticators expect Payne's film to be a real contender on Oscars night...