The Holdovers (Movie)

In December of 1970 I had just finished Grade 12 at boarding school. I had attended St. Peter’s College in Muenster, Saskatchewan. As I watched the The Holdovers movie my mind went back 50 years to life in boarding school.

St. Peter’s was not a well-to-do preppy New England academy like Barton in the movie. Many of my fellow students came from farms like myself. Certainly no one had a father with a helicopter.

We did not wear suit jackets and ties. The College had given up on having us wear ties after I was in Grade 10. Too many guys simply wore the same tie day after day with no regard to the rest of their clothing. The Barton boys were far more co-ordinated.

The longer hair of many of the boys in Barton was familiar. At St. Peter’s hair was also lengthening as the 60’s turned to the 70’s.

We did not have any Korean students. We did have students from Hong Kong. I could not imagine going thousands of miles from home for high school.

The casual, often biting banter, between the Barton boys was exactly what I recall from St. Peter’s. I did not fit in the banter as I hardly ever swear.

I would say there was less meanness at St. Peter’s. Certainly guys could be nasty but it was not as pervasive as at Barton.

The metal beds of the infirmary reminded me of the beds at St. Peter’s. The Barton beds appeared to have better springs than our beds.

The movie did not show the challenge of sleeping in a dormitory setting. It is hard getting to sleep in a room of guys. At St. Peter’s there would be 25 - 30 guys per dormitory.

Meals were less chaotic at Barton with the faculty sitting at a table in the dining room. At St. Peter’s the main goal at meals was to eat as fast as you could. Were you there more than 15 minutes after getting your tray you would be by yourself.

Meals at St. Peter’s were made mainly by sisters from the Order of St. Elizabeth with the aid of a few lay ladies. There was no equivalent to the formidable Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) of The Holdovers. I expect the food was comparable between the schools. Since we ate so quickly it would have been hard to appreciate the meals.

Randolph was understated but powerful as a grieving mother still carrying out her duties in the kitchen while aided by whiskey. 

Seeing the Barton College principal chain smoking in his office brought to mind Father Vincent Morrison who was principal at St. Peter’s when I started school there in 1967. He was always smoking in his office.

None of the teachers at St. Peter’s closely resembled Paul Hunham (Paul Giametti). 

I do recall guys being shaken by the academic standards at St. Peter’s. We were expected to meet expectations well beyond public high school. What was different from Barton is that the St. Peter’s administration would never have put pressure on a teacher to grade a student higher because their parents donated to the College.

At St. Peter’s most of the teachers were Benedictine priests or brothers. Two to three lay men filled in the remaining positions. Some of the Benedictine teachers had been there for decades. As with Mr. Hunham they gave us a good education.

None of my teachers were as caustic or profane as Mr. Hunham. They could be sarcastic. Brother Bede was slight in stature but no one wanted to cross him as he could verbally slash any pretense and put us in our place. Profanity between teachers and staff was not tolerated.

Integrity was valued at St. Peter’s and Barton. When students and teachers live together integrity is important.

I was never a holdover, unable to go home or to other family or friends for Christmas. I can see how achingly lonely it would have been for the holdover boys of the movie.

There were a couple of guys at St. Peter’s who wrote inappropriately to a girl. Instead of suspension they were, with the consent of their parents, heldover for weekends when the rest of us went home. One of the guys later said that discipline decision let him reflect on his actions,  made him a better man and helped him be successful in his life.

Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) could have been one of my classmates. Bright but fragile defined many of us at St. Peter’s. While Giamatti was the star I thought Sessa was brilliant. After the movie I learned he attended Deerfield Academy, a Massachusetts boarding school. He had acted in school plays, just finishing the fall play, when he auditioned for the role. The Holdovers is his first movie.

Giamatti is a great actor. Once again he was Mr. Hunham, a brilliant aloof man with a deeply damaged soul. His ability to convey emotion without talking is exceptional. 

Mr. Hunham’s personality is far from the well regarded Mr. Chips  of the 1939 movie, Goodbye Mr. Chips, about an English boarding school. Mr. Hunham and Mr. Chips did share a love of the classics and learning and teaching.

I was not surprised when I read, after watching the movie, that the screenwriter who was also one of the producers, David Hemingson, had attended prep school. I read an article in Time in which he said Mr. Hunham was modelled on his demanding caring Uncle Earl Cahail. He added that “I channeled my mother’s immense strength and heartache and love into Mary”. He did not say if he was the inspiration for Tully. I expect an Oscar nomination for his script.

The Holdovers deeply moved me. It is far more drama than comedy. I do not know why it is advertised as a Comedy/Drama. It was the best movie I have seen in years. I hope it does well.

As I left the theatre another filmgoer asked my thoughts. I said I had appreciated a movie where no one was killed or blown up, where real people dealt with real problems, where the plot was not a cartoon, where I could get emotional over the characters. He said there are not many out there.