The Holdovers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed it too.

Agree with pp that Paul Giamati's character seemed over the top harsh on the head master.

OP - yeah that was the only piece that did not make sense - all the other plot developments were like peeling off layers off an onion to get to the pearly inside …

PG is such a brilliant actor and somehow made us root for his character’s despite his looks, personality, and often, his lines …

And smelling like fish!

He hated the headmaster for a few reasons, I think:

- The headmaster had been his student, and not a very good one
- He thought the headmaster was too concerned with money and power, and not enough with integrity and knowledge
- He resents all the rich, socially smooth people (who don't smell like fish) who he thinks always get whatever they want while he has to struggle for everything

Ok that makes sense - thank you! I thought the head master gave him a second chance when others would not though? …

Forgot about that unusual Medical condition that caused him to smell like fish. Poor guy! I’d be tempted to turn to cheap whiskey or whatever with his bad luck as well.

The movie director had such a great eye for retro detail - felt like I was in New England in the 70s!

The main young actor was top notch also. Guess we will Be seeing more of him …

You're right - he did give him a second chance! But then PG felt stuck. He was liberated at the end for getting fired

I understood it as the headmaster who originally hired PG's character was the one he respected and who gave him a chance. However, he passed away, and then the younger guy who had been a former student took over, and for all the previously stated reasons that is why PG's character did not like the current headmaster.

That makes a lot of sense - I had wondered whether we missed some Nuance such as this …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed it too.

Agree with pp that Paul Giamati's character seemed over the top harsh on the head master.

OP - yeah that was the only piece that did not make sense - all the other plot developments were like peeling off layers off an onion to get to the pearly inside …

PG is such a brilliant actor and somehow made us root for his character’s despite his looks, personality, and often, his lines …

And smelling like fish!

He hated the headmaster for a few reasons, I think:

- The headmaster had been his student, and not a very good one
- He thought the headmaster was too concerned with money and power, and not enough with integrity and knowledge
- He resents all the rich, socially smooth people (who don't smell like fish) who he thinks always get whatever they want while he has to struggle for everything

Ok that makes sense - thank you! I thought the head master gave him a second chance when others would not though? …

Forgot about that unusual Medical condition that caused him to smell like fish. Poor guy! I’d be tempted to turn to cheap whiskey or whatever with his bad luck as well.

The movie director had such a great eye for retro detail - felt like I was in New England in the 70s!

The main young actor was top notch also. Guess we will Be seeing more of him …

Except for the part when they’re supposed to be going up the steps into the museum and they show Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market and you can see the Abercrombie & Fitch banners circa 2022. After that scene I got really cranky and restless and started checking my watch. Agree with the other PP that it was way longer than it needed to be.

I’m also tired of movies with 1-2 female characters who are barely given personalities apart from being foils to main male characters. Oppenheimer is the other movie I saw this fall and I’m over it. Can we have a movie other than Barbie with female characters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed it too.

Agree with pp that Paul Giamati's character seemed over the top harsh on the head master.

OP - yeah that was the only piece that did not make sense - all the other plot developments were like peeling off layers off an onion to get to the pearly inside …

PG is such a brilliant actor and somehow made us root for his character’s despite his looks, personality, and often, his lines …

And smelling like fish!

He hated the headmaster for a few reasons, I think:

- The headmaster had been his student, and not a very good one
- He thought the headmaster was too concerned with money and power, and not enough with integrity and knowledge
- He resents all the rich, socially smooth people (who don't smell like fish) who he thinks always get whatever they want while he has to struggle for everything

Ok that makes sense - thank you! I thought the head master gave him a second chance when others would not though? …

Forgot about that unusual Medical condition that caused him to smell like fish. Poor guy! I’d be tempted to turn to cheap whiskey or whatever with his bad luck as well.

The movie director had such a great eye for retro detail - felt like I was in New England in the 70s!

The main young actor was top notch also. Guess we will Be seeing more of him …

Yes! Especially the closet in one scene, I felt like I was transported back to my grandmother's house during Christmas with all their old fashioned decor and them getting ready to attend a holiday party.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed it too.

Agree with pp that Paul Giamati's character seemed over the top harsh on the head master.

OP - yeah that was the only piece that did not make sense - all the other plot developments were like peeling off layers off an onion to get to the pearly inside …

PG is such a brilliant actor and somehow made us root for his character’s despite his looks, personality, and often, his lines …

And smelling like fish!

He hated the headmaster for a few reasons, I think:

- The headmaster had been his student, and not a very good one
- He thought the headmaster was too concerned with money and power, and not enough with integrity and knowledge
- He resents all the rich, socially smooth people (who don't smell like fish) who he thinks always get whatever they want while he has to struggle for everything

Ok that makes sense - thank you! I thought the head master gave him a second chance when others would not though? …

Forgot about that unusual Medical condition that caused him to smell like fish. Poor guy! I’d be tempted to turn to cheap whiskey or whatever with his bad luck as well.

The movie director had such a great eye for retro detail - felt like I was in New England in the 70s!

The main young actor was top notch also. Guess we will Be seeing more of him …

Except for the part when they’re supposed to be going up the steps into the museum and they show Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market and you can see the Abercrombie & Fitch banners circa 2022. After that scene I got really cranky and restless and started checking my watch. Agree with the other PP that it was way longer than it needed to be.

I’m also tired of movies with 1-2 female characters who are barely given personalities apart from being foils to main male characters. Oppenheimer is the other movie I saw this fall and I’m over it. Can we have a movie other than Barbie with female characters?

I thought Mary was a great character. But also I think it's fine to have a story exploring the complicated inner lives of men and boys. There aren't a lot of those.

You might like Anatomy of a Fall - that's totally centered on a very complicated female character.

But yeah, I take your point that there are more movies about men than about women - or at least it does feel that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed it too.

Agree with pp that Paul Giamati's character seemed over the top harsh on the head master.

OP - yeah that was the only piece that did not make sense - all the other plot developments were like peeling off layers off an onion to get to the pearly inside …

PG is such a brilliant actor and somehow made us root for his character’s despite his looks, personality, and often, his lines …

And smelling like fish!

He hated the headmaster for a few reasons, I think:

- The headmaster had been his student, and not a very good one
- He thought the headmaster was too concerned with money and power, and not enough with integrity and knowledge
- He resents all the rich, socially smooth people (who don't smell like fish) who he thinks always get whatever they want while he has to struggle for everything

Ok that makes sense - thank you! I thought the head master gave him a second chance when others would not though? …

Forgot about that unusual Medical condition that caused him to smell like fish. Poor guy! I’d be tempted to turn to cheap whiskey or whatever with his bad luck as well.

The movie director had such a great eye for retro detail - felt like I was in New England in the 70s!

The main young actor was top notch also. Guess we will Be seeing more of him …

You're right - he did give him a second chance! But then PG felt stuck. He was liberated at the end for getting fired

I understood it as the headmaster who originally hired PG's character was the one he respected and who gave him a chance. However, he passed away, and then the younger guy who had been a former student took over, and for all the previously stated reasons that is why PG's character did not like the current headmaster.

That makes a lot of sense - I had wondered whether we missed some Nuance such as this …

I just watched this last night. The scene in Boston where they run into his old classmate, he explains that after college his only opportunity was to come back to Barton to teach and he'd been there ever since. The current headmaster probably wasn't even born yet!

[Anonymous]

RE the comments about male vs female characters... there were 3 main characters and Mary was one of the 3. I thought she was great. All of them were deeply broken but found some healing in their relationships with each other. I don't think her character was a foil any more than the other two EXCEPT for the fact that she felt like she wasn't ready to see her sister and then all of a sudden she was eager to be there. Maybe the Christmas dinner at the school made her realize how much she wanted to be around family even if her son couldn't be there?

[Anonymous]

I have not seen it and have not read a single reply, I am going to try to scan for replies to this. I felt like the preview told a whole story and I thought it was going to be kind of hokey and predictable. Please reply to this post if you are so kind and without saying more about the movie tell me if you think that the movie went deeper than the preview?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have not seen it and have not read a single reply, I am going to try to scan for replies to this. I felt like the preview told a whole story and I thought it was going to be kind of hokey and predictable. Please reply to this post if you are so kind and without saying more about the movie tell me if you think that the movie went deeper than the preview?

Yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have not seen it and have not read a single reply, I am going to try to scan for replies to this. I felt like the preview told a whole story and I thought it was going to be kind of hokey and predictable. Please reply to this post if you are so kind and without saying more about the movie tell me if you think that the movie went deeper than the preview?

Yes

Agree the movie went deeper than the preview and had wonderful characters. I thought it was going to be predictable but I did not predict the layers as they came off.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting. We were trying to decide what movie to watch tonight, and I think we will pick this.

[Anonymous]

How old is Paul (the character, not the actor)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old is Paul (the character, not the actor)?

We thought 19 or 20 as he has failed out of several schools ….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old is Paul (the character, not the actor)?

We thought 19 or 20 as he has failed out of several schools ….

Sorry I meant Angus

We thought Paul was early 50s ish but haggard for his age due to drinking/ bitterness …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old is Paul (the character, not the actor)?

We thought 19 or 20 as he has failed out of several schools ….

I thought so too but the he would have been allowed to drink in the bar as the drinking age back then was 18. I think at the end they mentioned he was 17

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old is Paul (the character, not the actor)?

We thought 19 or 20 as he has failed out of several schools ….

I thought so too but the he would have been allowed to drink in the bar as the drinking age back then was 18. I think at the end they mentioned he was 17

He commented that he’d failed out of schools and that was why he was still a junior. This seemed like it could have been an inconsistency to me. If he’d repeated a year and should have been a senior, there was a decent chance he was already 18… but the drinking thing implied he wasn’t drinking age yet. Also, seems like if he was 18 he could have just left the school (as an adult).