THE HOLDOVERS

I had to watch THE HOLDOVERS twice to really understand my response to it and disentangle some of the heavy baggage I was bringing to the table (or holding over, so to speak).  The obstacles I faced were threefold: first, the period and the hyper-real, nostalgic feeling of the film being not just about the early 70s, but kinda OF the early 70s; second, my own personal prep school experiences and those of my closest family; and finally, the wider context of the dying embers of the #MeToo movement and my perennial frustration with the lack of true accountability, real systemic change and an industry-wide reckoning (yes, I can hear you yawning and see the eye-rolling, but I am still on that!).

THE HOLDOVERS is set in 1970 and it is preceded by ye olde school logos and credit roll, tapping into our shared cinematic memory of the period, i.e. the idea that sometimes films set in a particular period are as strong, if not stronger than actual memories of the period (if we are old enough to have them).  If you were asked to think of New York in the 80s, you may well conjure shared celluloid images from Ghostbusters or King of Comedy before you tap into your own memories.  In making THE HOLDOVERS, Alexander Payne has utilised that shared cinematic memory, and the consequence for me was a sense of deja vu, of uncanny familiarity which left me feeling a little vulnerable and emotionally raw.

On the one hand, I’m not entirely impressed by a director’s ability to go back in time: why forego all of the benefits of making a film in 2023, particularly that of communicating with a contemporary audience in a film language that is au courant and more accessible?  (As a comparison, what if I were to review The Canterbury Tales and deliver my work in Middle English?  “Here bygynneth the reviewere….” etc.  The word “wanky” comes to mind….🙄)  And on the other hand, I think all great films are about filmmaking and storytelling, and this film is about delving into the past in order to inform and propel our futures, and the form of the film does advance the message of the film, and ultimately, on second viewing, I got comfortable enough with the sense of the uncanny to relax into it, applaud it… love it, even.  So: one obstacle overcome.

But, back to that feeling of deja vu… not only did I go to a New England boarding school very much like Barton Academy, I went to the same school as Paul Giametti.  They didn’t use Choate as a filming location (it was actually filmed across five schools in Massachusetts), but it could easily have been Choate.  And I wasn’t left at boarding school over a Christmas break, but I have no doubt my mother would have left me there if she had known it was an option….  And I wasn’t ever threatened with being kicked out of school (or ever in any trouble, tbh - I’m hella obedient, folks), but my brother was.

I was 15 by the time I made it to Choate and it was my fifth year of boarding school.  The school I’d attended in the UK (all girls, Church of England, school on a Saturday, church on a Sunday, uniform including a deep pink hooded cloak….) was a fucking nightmare, so, all things being relative, I couldn’t have been happier when I landed in Connecticut, surrounded by a beautiful campus, gifted a wonderful education, and… boys.  My brother couldn’t see it that way, and when he got there at age 13 for his sixth year of boarding school, he wept every night and was inconsolable, and I don’t think he has ever recovered.   And so I really felt for the boys at Barton Academy and I feared for their futures, but I understand my own experiences a little better now, which is a painful and wonderful thing and one of the many glorious functions of cinema.  And, in a nod to the film’s soundtrack, “Crying, crying never did nobody no good, no how.  That’s why I don’t cry.”  So: second obstacle overcome.

Third and finally (and rather boringly, you’ll be thinking, no doubt), it appears that we have all chosen to forget that Rose McGowan alleges serious sexual impropriety (statutory rape) on the part of Alexander Payne.  In brief, she says she went to an audition with him when she was 15 (and he was 27) and he took her back to his apartment, showed her soft porn and had sex with her.   In an open response in Deadline, Payne admitted to meeting her at an audition and having sex with her (or “cordial interactions,” as he charmingly describes it… 🤢), but claimed it was in 1991 when she was “of age” (McGowan turned 18 in September 1991, for the record).  The problem that I have with Payne’s defence, beyond it’s oily smarminess (he even commends her on her feminism and #MeToo activism), is that his version of events remains an abuse of power, of position, and an example of the exploitation of women in Hollywood by men who SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER or, at the very least, SHOULD KNOW BETTER NOW.

In my opinion, violence against women exists in a continuum that extends from wolf whistles on the street to rape and femicide, tapping into a whole host of complicated, knotty issues along the way including the representation of women in/by the media, equal opportunities, equal pay, equal rights and the dearth of opportunities for women at the top.  I don’t think you can extract some of these inconvenient stories of sexual impropriety by our favoured filmmakers, the untouchable talents, from the Weinstein level in-your-face, vomit inducing ones.  That is, I think a world where a director takes a young woman (15, 17, 18, 23, whatever) from a professional audition to his apartment to have sex with her is the same world that normalises auditions in hotel suites, massages for producers, jerking off into plant pots, and rape: it’s all part of the same continuum.  And as such, we need those who are revered as our most talented filmmakers and storytellers, men like Alexander Payne, to be accountable somehow, in some proportionate way, not least so that I can keep enjoying his amazing films (and finding him rather dishy, tbh).  I am not advocating for cancelling anybody.  But can we invent an appropriate way for men like Alexander Payne to engage more constructively (and less patronisingly, please) with the #MeToo discussion?  Can we build a world where men are able to say, “I fucked up and I will do better”?  I think we need a “come to Jesus” moment in order to reignite those dying embers of the #MeToo movement and to really address the ongoing systemic exploitation of women in/by Hollywood.  If anyone has any ideas about how to move this dialogue forwards, I’m all ears!

I guess it is saying something about THE HOLDOVERS that I am able to overcome all of that, all three obstacles, and still lean into and applaud this film, which was probably ⭐️⭐️⭐️ on my first viewing, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️on my second, and, if my viewing history of SIDEWAYS is any indication, will be ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ on my next.