Watching: The Holdovers

I don't watch a lot of TV or movies on TV. I turn the thing on maybe two or three times during a month, some months not at all. (Reading and listening to books and podcasts are my main entertainment.) And I stopped going to movies in person during the shutdown, of course. But I've actually seen FOUR movies in theaters so far this year! In order, Oppenheimer, Barbie, Stop Making Sense, and, last night, The Holdovers. Hooray for the movies!

The Holdovers was SO GOOD! I went in with few expectations and no reviews under my belt. I did see a trailer at one of my other movies, and I was expecting maybe a Breakfast Club type movie, with a cool mixed bag of misfits that would bond in the face of adversity. I guess it had that, but it was so much more!

Do go see it! I went to bed thinking about it, and I was still under its spell when I woke up. 

Minor spoilers below, perhaps, but not major.

The period setting is totally spot on. Imagine my surprise to realize that the main kid is exactly my age - a high school junior in 1970. I guessed the year early on by the hair on the high school boys. There are many lovely details, and I was taken with the music. Only a little was composed just for the movie, most were low-key sounds appropriate to the time, holiday, folk, rock, blues, jazz. Recognizing snippets kept me smiling through the whole thing. New England and Boston were also spot on, including a glimpse of a picture of the Kennedys on a kitchen wall. Clothes, interiors, language, all seemed perfect. Vietnam looms, though also true to form, it (mostly) doesn't loom too large for these largely privileged and sheltered people. 

The movie only slowly moves to a crescendo, getting better throughout. As the focus narrows to just three very diverse people, their characters, troubles and motivations sucked me in. None of these peoples have life circumstances remotely like my own, but I cared deeply for them. I watched how they began to care for each other, and I was rooting for them to be better than they were. I was wearing a mask in the theater, and so my tears and dripping nose were largely invisible. There will clearly be acting awards, for any of the three principals. We spent a moment afterwards imagining which scene would be played for each in nominations.

After the biggest crisis occurs near the end, there is a brief coda where you get a glimpse of the possible futures for these deeply human creatures I grew to care about so much. Imagining how that will go is part of what has kept me wrapped up in it. I would also like to see the whole movie again, maybe when it becomes available for streaming. The pacing at the beginning is slow, and I would like to hone in on how telling details are slowly revealed as the layers of the story are built.

Love to hear what others think!