Alexander Payne
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As “The Holdovers” morphs from miserablist odd-couple comedy to bittersweet road movie, it aims to remind you, sometimes with a hard nudge, of Hal Ashby classics like “Harold and Maude” and “The Last Detail”; an argument with a waitress automatically nods to Bob Rafelson’s “Five Easy Pieces.”
Evoking the cinematographic proclivities of 1970s filmmakers (the influential likes of Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude and Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller pervade the fuzzy, 35mm cinematography), Payne reverberates the eras’ ambiance via faraway zooms, sentimental Labi Siffre and Cat Stevens’ needle drops, rustic prep-school environs, and darkly-lit oaken hallways.
Featuring spiky intergenerational negotiations and intelligent repartee all-round , The Holdovers is often reminiscent of the best parts of Peter Weir's 1989 heart-breaking coming of age drama Dead Poets Society.
If you were expecting Robin Williams’s Mr. Keating, from Dead Poets Society, a harlequin who inspires his students with poetry and benevolence, you walked into the wrong classroom.
Up in the Air (2009)
Directed by Jason Reitman
influenced by About Schmidt (2002), Election (1999), Citizen Ruth (1996), Sideways (2004)
Themes Plot
That "Election" reference leads to another observation, and that is the many parallels between "Up in the Air" and "Election's" writer/director Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt."
A scenario reminiscent of Alexander Payne's About Schmidt, it's as glib and false as Bingham's spiel to stunned, newly canned ex-employees.
So he set his aim higher, wanting to make a film with the kind of complex, seriocomic humanity he admired in Billy Wilder, Hal Ashby, James L. Brooks, and the contemporary director he most reveres, Alexander Payne ( Sideways , About Schmidt , Election ).
Rolfe Kent (ah, the Alexander Payne connection!—for his scores on Sideways, About Schmidt, Election, and Citizen Ruth) does a masterfully complimentary score, with additional songs picked by music supervisor Randall Poster including Crosby, Stills & Nash and Charles Atlas.
So he set his aim higher, wanting to make a film with the kind of complex, seriocomic humanity he admired in Billy Wilder, Hal Ashby, James L. Brooks, and the contemporary director he most reveres, Alexander Payne ( Sideways , About Schmidt , Election ).
In particular, Anna Kendrick, who charmed in "Camp," enters a pantheon of smart young indie actresses with a breakout resembling Reese Witherspoon's in "Election."
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Directed by Bob Rafelson
influenced The Holdovers (2023), Sideways (2004)
Themes
As “The Holdovers” morphs from miserablist odd-couple comedy to bittersweet road movie, it aims to remind you, sometimes with a hard nudge, of Hal Ashby classics like “Harold and Maude” and “The Last Detail”; an argument with a waitress automatically nods to Bob Rafelson's “Five Easy Pieces.”
There are very few films in this day and age that both harkens back to the tradition of “Five Easy Pieces” exploring characters with no real future or anything to look forward to, and searching for one, while exploring the incredulously distressing and often futile machinations in the artistic experience of an author.
As “The Holdovers” morphs from miserablist odd-couple comedy to bittersweet road movie, it aims to remind you, sometimes with a hard nudge, of Hal Ashby classics like “Harold and Maude” and “The Last Detail”; an argument with a waitress automatically nods to Bob Rafelson's “Five Easy Pieces.”
After review, The Hunt harks to the Alexander Payne film, Citizen Ruth.
It can’t touch the Clinton-era satires The Last Supper (1995) or Citizen Ruth (1996), which succeeded for reasons other than being on “the correct side.”
And there's such spark mixed with pain in Sessa's young Dustin Hoffman-esque turn (a comparison reinforced when Paul and Angus hit the cinema to see western Little Big Man, which stars Hoffman, and by The Holdovers overall harking back to The Graduate times).
In fact, Payne and cinematographer Eigil Bryld might cringe at this, but the snowy Barton campus even evokes a little bit of 1970’s “Love Story” (in the best way possible).
And there's such spark mixed with pain in Sessa's young Dustin Hoffman-esque turn (a comparison reinforced when Paul and Angus hit the cinema to see western Little Big Man, which stars Hoffman, and by The Holdovers overall harking back to The Graduate times).
I am reminded of Election (1999), a high-school comedy that mocked the values that Booksmart , for all its girl-centric appeal, does nothing to challenge.
Inside Booksmart ’s Type-A protagonist Molly (Beanie Feldstein) beats the savage heart of Election ’s Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), while her dreamy, sensitive best friend Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) isn’t so far from Aldys (Leelee Sobieski), the tender weirdo from Never Been Kissed .
The script feels reminiscent of any number of millennial adolescent dramedies; think of films like Jeffrey Blitz’s Rocket Science – to pull one randomly from the corners of memory – that matter most to those who saw them at just the right age.
There are hints of undisputable inspiration in Gomez-Rejon's approachWes Anderson's " Rushmore " and Alexander Payne's " Election " come immediately to mind while watchingbut the filmmaker uses them merely as a jumping-off point for his own uniquely perceptive viewpoint.Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann) is a die-hard cinephile and aspiring director whose 42 home-made films (most of them affectionate movie spoofs) adorn his family's living-room shelves.
Recently divorced alcoholic schoolteacher and aspiring novelist Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti, "American Splendor") uses his best buddy Jack's (Thomas Haden Church, TV's "Wings" and "Ned and Stacy") impending marriage for a week long male bonding trip to central California wine country.
Paul Giamatti, the pudgy, balding, slightly despondent character actor of Man on the Moon and American Splendor, gives a performance of such pent-up desperation and heartbreaking moroseness in Sideways that he single-handedly cements Alexander Payne's film as one of the year's finest.
He's also coaxed great performances out of four lesser-known actors and transformed one of them, Paul Giamatti from "American Splendor," into film's most unlikely leading man.
Giamatti, a virtuoso of nervous self-loathing (witness his performance as Harvey Pekar in "American Splendor"), interacts with Church impeccably, and their friendship seems at once believable and too funny to be believed.
Whatever the case, after already lengthy careers, Paul Giamatti ( American Splendor ), Thomas Haden Church ( Tombstone ) and Virgina Madsen ( Crossfire Trail ) all give the best performances of their lives in Sideways, the new film from writer-director Alexander Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor, the team responsible for Election and About Schmidt .
No messy massacres like the one in Gus Van Sant's Elephant or political backstabbing à la Alexander Payne's Election.
It looks right. The strummed soundtrack reminds us of The Graduate. The performances are certainly on a par. But The Holdovers is more at home to redemptive sentimentality than Ashby or Altman would have allowed.
The story of an illicit love affair that coincides with a presumed pedophile's move to town, "Little Children" is based on a book by Tom Perrotta, who wrote the novel "Election" (Alexander Payne's film was later based on it).
Pedigree: It's from Tom Perrotta, the writer of Election, and writer-director Todd Field (In the Bedroom).
Cowriter (with novelist Tom Perrotta, "Election")/director Todd Fields ("In the Bedroom") shifts from the murky blackness of the human heart exposed by grief that he explored "In the Bedroom" to the unfocused self-centeredness of unformed yuppies with every bit as keen an instinct for what makes people tick.
"Little Children" is far from a bad movie, but it's not as deep and subtly disturbing as Fields' " In the Bedroom " or as infernally funny as Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor's film adaptation of Perrotta's novel Election.
A good measuring stick would be Alexander Payne's Election (1999), which was also adapted from a novel by Tom Perotta and was a good deal tighter and more fearless; that movie sustained its biting humor, while Little Children can't quite decide on a tone.
Todd Field's second feature film, like his debut "In the Bedroom," is another adaptation, but this time, he collaborated with the novel's author Tom Perrotta ("Election"), which helps instill more overt humor into what is essentially a dark and quirky character drama.
Payne is so adept at mining quiet humor ("swinging bachelors" watch The Grapes of Wrath in their hotel room) that we buy it when Sideways almost turns farcical in the late going, because we've already invested in the characters.
Clooney’s old-school Hollywood handsomeness, paired with the vulnerability he brought to dramas like The Descendants, allows Jay to be a fascinatingly complex shallow person.
…a vibe he cultivated persuasively in movies like Michael Clayton, Up in the Air, and The Descendants…
Ironically and pointedly, the film clips at the Italian homage come from Clooney’s own films.
…indeed, it’s probably the best fit since “The Descendants.”
In The Descendants, it’s when he’s told his late wife was unfaithful to him.
…although he is capable of truly inspired work, as in The Descendants…
As much as it recalls the family road-trip shenanigans of “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Captain Fantastic” may also remind you of “The Descendants,” Alexander Payne ’s drama about a man trying to make peace with his wife as she lies dying.
Evoking the cinematographic proclivities of 1970s filmmakers (the influential likes of Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude and Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller pervade the fuzzy, 35mm cinematography), Payne reverberates the eras’ ambiance via faraway zooms, sentimental Labi Siffre and Cat Stevens’ needle drops, rustic prep-school environs, and darkly-lit oaken hallways.