Best Pictures #102: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Poor Things

by A.J.

Best Pictures #102: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Poor Things

“I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence.”

Poor Things is a strange and unusual movie and yet it tells a familiar story with familiar themes. It is a fable of a simpleton who goes out into the world, has new experiences, and inadvertently exposes the nonsense and hypocrisy of society that we all accept as normal. It is the approach and execution by director Yorgos Lanthimos and the stunning work by the costume designer and production designers that make Poor Things enjoyably outlandish and memorable. 

This dark, fractured fairy tale mixes elements of Frankenstein and Candide together in a steampunk blender. Emma Stone plays Bella Baxter, a living experiment who moves and sounds like a toddler-like creature though she has the body of an adult woman. She is the creation (of sorts) of mad scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who is her father figure and does not mind that Bella’s nickname for him is “God.” He enlists Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), one of his university students, to track Bella’s development. She learns and matures and of course Max falls in love with her, but Godwin’s lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), whisks her away on a tour of Europe with the promise of experiencing life outside of Godwin’s house and laboratory. And so Bella’s journey of enlightenment and eroticism begins. 

Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo’s perfectly over the top performances are a large part of why Poor Things works at all. Stone is great at the broad comedy required. More importantly, she makes Bella’s resilient optimism believable instead of naive or annoying. It’s clear from his very first scene that Wedderurn is a lascivious cad of questionable scruples and also a bit of a buffoon; Ruffalo’s cartoonish take on this character is just right. Bella and Wedderburn’s tour of Europe begins in Lisbon and consists of lots of sex, which Bella calls “furious jumping,” and then more sex. (This film is certainly not shy about sex and nudity.) As Bella learns and experiences more of the world and other people she becomes harder to control and Ruffalo really lets his character’s petulant and buffoonish side take over with great comic results. Even with all the sex and nudity the most interesting parts of Bella’s journey are her encounters with a fellow couple on a cruise, a wizened older woman played by Hanna Schygulla and her younger traveling companion played by Jarrod Carmichel, and her return to London where her optimism and shunning of cruelty are tested.

Unusual though the characters and story may be, it is the production design and costumes that make the film eye-catching and memorable. The look is a highly artificial late Victorian steampunk fantasy version of the world, and it is a feast for the eyes. The scenes on the Mediterranean cruise, especially at night, have an enchanting, surreal aesthetic. Production designers Shona Heath and James Price have done some stunning work and have rightfully received Oscar nominations. Likewise, Bella’s costumes with huge puffy shoulders by Holly Waddington, also Oscar nominated, help create the bizarre fairy tale vibe. 

There are many points where Poor Things could lose a viewer. The use of a fisheye lens and swish pans, favorite techniques of Lanthimos, are jarring and mostly unnecessary since the production design, costumes, and makeup effects are already doing the heavy lifting in creating the unusual aesthetic. However, the element that may be a strange step too far and downright off putting for some involves Bella’s backstory. I’m not sure if this qualifies as a spoiler as it is revealed relatively early on, but I will write about it now. Dr. Godwin tells Max about how one day he found the fresh corpse of a pregnant woman who jumped from a bridge into a river to kill herself. Unable to resist the scientific possibilities, but wanting to respect the woman’s wish to be dead, he put the brain of the unborn baby into the woman’s head and brought her to life. Hence Bella’s toddling and broken speech. Though she learns and matures quickly, just as Frankenstein’s Monster did, there’s a certain uneasiness to men fawning over Bella, whose mental development is still in progress, especially in the early scenes. 

Poor Things has been described by many as a feminist film about a young woman taking agency over her body and her mind. This is certainly true. However, I would certainly not contradict anyone who found its brand of feminism fishy, seeing as how it is about a simple minded woman whose journey of enlightenment and self-realization involves lots and lots of very casual sex. It might come as no surprise to some that the main creative voices behind the movie are all male: director Yorgos Lanthimos, screenwriter Tony McNamara, and Alasdair Gray who wrote the novel. 

Yorgos Lanthimos, whose previous films include Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and the Oscar nominated The Favourite, is no stranger to offbeat and challenging subject matter. Somehow Poor Things almost feels like a departure for him since it lacks the grim darkness of his previous films. Bella’s ever flowing optimism and belief in kindness are the heart of the story and make this an ultimately optimistic, life affirming film.

Best Pictures #101: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Past Lives

by A.J.

Best Pictures #101: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Past Lives

“It's an In-Yun if two strangers even walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush. Because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives.”

Past Lives opens with a curious prologue. From a distance we see three people (a Korean man, a Korean woman, a Caucasian man) sitting together at a bar late at night. Anonymous voices off camera wonder, “Who do you think they are to each other?” and speculate on possible scenarios and situations. In this brief scene writer-director Celine Song, with her amazing debut feature, dramatizes in short form what is at the core of every movie. We as the audience are here to know who these characters are and what they mean to each other. The answer to that question drives everything in this delicate story about life, relationships, and fate. This is one of the best movies of 2023 and one of the most moving stories I’ve seen in years. 

The Korean woman at the bar is Nora (Greta Lee), a playwright living in New York with her husband, the Caucasian man, Arthur (John Magaro). The Korean man is Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), who is visiting. In the film’s first chapter we see Nora and Hae Sung at age 12 living in Korea where they are friends and young sweethearts. We see their first and only date in a park before Nora’s family moves to Canada. Twelve years pass and Nora moves to New York for graduate school. Hae Sung is doing his mandatory military service. They reconnect over Facebook and video calls which both look forward to, for a time. Twelve more years pass and Nora still lives in New York and is now married to Arthur, a fellow writer. Hae Sung, now an engineer, decides to take a vacation to New York. His friends aren’t fooled. They know he is going to see Nora. 

Past Lives shows a love triangle unlike any other that has been on film. This is not about romantic conflict or physical attraction; it is not concerned with sensational scenes or dramatic outbursts. In a key scene Arthur tells Nora that she and Hae Sung have a better story than their own: “Childhood sweethearts who reconnect 20 years later only to realize they were meant for each other… In the story I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny.” He is also describing a more conventional, lesser version of the film. There are no contrivances or misunderstandings that lead to familiar scenes of melodrama. These people have a connection and are trying to make sense of it; their conflict is with themselves. 

Nora brings up the idea of “In-Yun”, a Korean word for providence or fate but specifically regarding relationships between people. Reunited in New York, Hae Sung and Nora wonder who they were in each other’s past lives. There are shades of melancholy, of the wistfulness that comes with ruminating on the past, contemplating other possible lives, but this is not a sad movie. The ultimate result is a story that is comforting and even uplifting. 

Perhaps because Song’s screenplay was inspired by her own experiences–Song’s family immigrated from Korea, she became a playwright in New York, and later reconnected with a childhood friend–she took great care to keep her movie from turning into a typical Hollywood movie, or a typical indie movie. Stylistically, she finds places for artistic touches here and there while keeping the film widely accessible. She and cinematographer Shabier Kirchner keep the camera back using mostly wide and medium shots which gives us the feeling of being a fly on the wall, lucky witnesses to intimate moments. The score by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen, low-key and gentle just like the story and performances, perfectly underscores the emotions at play. Sometimes real art–a painting, a poem, a movie–can convey ineffable emotions that we recognize and then we feel seen and there is a small but powerful joy in being seen.

Best Pictures #100: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Anatomy of a Fall

by A.J.

Best Pictures #100: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Anatomy of a Fall

“This is your own trap.”

Anatomy of a Fall feels like the kind of courtroom drama that Hollywood studios used to turn out in the 1980’s and 90’s. This winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes film Festival has gone on to international acclaim and relative box office success (for a foreign language film released in America anyway), and now has earned 5 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress for Sandra Hüller, Director for Justine Triet, Original Screenplay, and Editing. In its best moments it blends the drama of a murder trial, the tension of a mystery, and the emotions of a marital drama, which is impressive since one of the spouses dies right at the very beginning. This is essentially a legal procedural elevated by its embracing of uncertainty, great performances, and marital and family drama played not for sensation but to give the characters dimensions and complexity. 

German actress Sandra Hüller plays a successful author, also named Sandra, living with her French husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), their son, Daniel, and dog, Snoop, in an isolated home in the snowy French countryside. Samuel dies from a mysterious fall out of the attic window. We do not see the fall. The only witness is 11-year-old Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner), who is visually impaired from an accident. It seems unlikely that Samuel just fell. Did Sandra push him? Did he commit suicide? Sandra’s high-profile trial, which is most of the 2 ½ hour film, digs up the drama and discord of her marriage that makes each scenario as likely as the other. 

Justine Triet’s direction and screenplay, co-written with Arthur Harari, never lean too far one way or the other about Sandra’s possible guilt or innocence. As soon as secrets are revealed and sympathies built for either Samuel or Sandra, the story slyly introduces doubt. Nearly every scene in the trial is underplayed in a way that lets tension creep in and build slowly. When a secret recording Samuel made of an argument the night before his death is played in court, the movie cuts to an extended flashback. This is Samuel Theis’s only significant scene and both he and Hüller are brilliant. The scene captures, maybe too well, the uneven ups and downs of a real argument: valid points mixed with petty sniping, shouting mixed with measured tones. Triet wisely cuts back to the courtroom right when the argument turns physical and we have to decide if we believe the prosecution or Sandra about the sounds of breaking dishes and slapping and hitting.

The French courtroom seems to be designed for maximum drama. The opposing lawyers and even Sandra are allowed to interrupt and cross-examine whenever opportune. Tangential speeches introducing hypothetical theories are made while a witness stands in the witness box in the background. Swann Arlaud as Vincent, Sandra’s lawyer, who is not entirely concerned with Sandra's innocence or guilt, is a great scene partner for her and a great verbal sparring partner for the zealous Advocate General, played by Antione Reinartz. Milo Machado-Graner has some key towards the climax and the young actor is more than up to the task. Even the Snoop the dog, played by Messi, does some impressive dog acting. 

It would be wrong to describe Anatomy of a Fall as a mystery because it is not so much concerned with solving Samuel’s mysterious death or proving Sandra’s innocence or guilt. It is more concerned with the doubt and uncertainty that can exist between people that are supposed to be the closest. Despite this, the style and structure are straightforward. The differing perspectives are made in the courtroom only through words; this is not a Rashomon tale where we see different points of view dramatized. Uncertainty looms over the entire story, even the ending, which though not ambiguous, still feels inconclusive in a way that may not satisfy all but fits the tone and themes. 

Best Pictures #99: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Maestro

by A.J.

Best Pictures #99: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Maestro

“The other night I drifted nice 

continental drift divide

Mountains sit in a line, 

Leonard Bernstein,”

–It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), REM 

From working in the classical department of Tower Records across from Lincoln Center in Manhattan I learned that Leonard Bernstein was a famous, loved, and revered conductor and composer. The DVD box-set of his Young People’s Concerts, so expensive it had to be kept behind the counter, sat on a shelf over my shoulder during every shift. I already knew that he was the only lyric anyone could anticipate in REM’s song “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Even if I hadn’t worked in the classical department I would have learned about Leonard Bernstein from his music for movies like On the Town and, most famously, West Side Story. But what exactly was it about Bernstein that separated him from other prestigious conductors and composers? I did not learn that from the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, which is technical and even artistic achievement but unfortunately lacking as an engaging biography.

Bradley Cooper’s directorial follow up to his excellent remake of A Star is Born begins in black and white in Academy ratio (a square frame) like a movie made in the 1940’s and 50’s would have been, but the style of this portion of the film is its most unconventional. It's also the liveliest portion. These scenes mix Bernstein’s music with moments of his life in exciting ways. One scene begins at an outdoor lunch where Bernstein (Cooper) is advised to change his name to Burns if he ever wants to lead an orchestra. Bernstein and his wife, Felicia (Carey Mulligan), decide to do things their way and walk from the outdoor lunch table right into the balcony of a theater where On the Town is being performed and end up on stage. When the movie switches over to color it drops its heightened style and becomes a fairly bland biopic. 

Cooper long ago proved himself to be a great actor, capable of comedy or drama or a little bit of both simultaneously depending on the script, and here he turns in a solid performance. The prosthetics and old age make-up are actually very well done and are not distracting (or potentially offensive) as early publicity photos led many to fear. He captures Bernstein’s accent and manner of speaking without feeling like he is showing off. Carey Mulligan also gives a solid performance, likewise capturing a very mannered accent and personality without drawing attention to herself. Mulligan and Cooper are great together in their fun romantic scenes and later dramatic scenes. 

In the black and white portion of Bernstein’s early career we see his relationship with a clarinet player, David (Matt Bomer), but without much detail. It’s the performances of both actors that let us know how meaningful the relationship was. Their farewell is the movie’s emotional apex. In a later scene we see Bernstein caught with a younger male admirer in a hallway of the family apartment at a party. Bernstein is embarrassed because he should know better. Felicia scolds him, “You’re getting sloppy.” We learn little else of whatever understanding or agreement they may have had regarding Bernstein’s sexuality.  

Cooper the director once again works with cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who earned an Oscar nomination for A Star is Born and now has earned an Oscar nomination for his work here. They make a great pair. In the black and white scenes the camera glides and even seems to fly in a way that captures Bernstein's excitement about music. That lively movement is lost when the film moves to the color era and the cinematography becomes much more conventional though still well shot. 

Most of Maestro consists of domestic scenes that should feel intimate: a day in the park, preparing a guest list, a doctor’s appointment, a dance. However, instead of feeling like a fly on the wall, it felt like I was at a museum trying to understand an exhibit I’d been assured was meaningful art. Instead of building relatability and fleshing out the characters these scenes feel flat, and therefore, unfortunately, so does the rest of the movie. It's clear that Bradley Cooper, who in addition to acting and directing also produced and co-wrote the screenplay, loves and reveres Leonard Bernstein. The problem is that Cooper's film assumes we already feel the same and are here to revel in Bernstein’s greatness instead of seeing who the man was as a person, the impact he had on his field and the wider culture, and why we should feel what the filmmakers feel for the subject.

Best Pictures #98: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: American Fiction

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #98: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

American Fiction

“Not being able to relate to people isn't a badge of honor.”

Satire is difficult enough, but successfully blending satire with recognizable everyday emotions is a most challenging feat that writer-director Cord Jefferson accomplishes with his more than impressive debut feature, American Fiction. It helps that he has Jeffery Wright in the lead role giving one of the best performances of 2023; Wright has very deservedly received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. More than just a hilarious satire of the literary world and perceptions of race, American Fiction is also a moving family drama, a smart comedy, and the kind of character study that feels like a throwback to the challenging and offbeat films of the late 1960’s and early 70’s. 

Wright plays Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a talented but commercially unsuccessful author and college professor. Monk reaches a breaking point when his latest novel is rejected by publishers while a novel by another Black intellectual, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), that indulges in stereotypes and street dialect so extreme it sounds more ridiculous than authentic, becomes a bestseller. His frustration leads him to write a parody of “Black trauma porn” called My Pafology under the incredible pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh. He has his agent send it to publishers as a joke but the joke is on Monk because they think it is a serious book and offer a very big payday.

Monk reluctantly takes the money because of the events of the other storyline: his family problems. A forced sabbatical from his university prompts Monk’s return to his hometown of Boston and the nearby family beach house. After a sudden tragedy, he finds himself the primary caretaker of his mother, Agnes (Leslie Uggams), who is in the early stages of dementia. His brother, Clifford (Sterling K. Brown), is little help as he’s going through his own major life events: a divorce and coming out as gay. A bright spot for Monk is a potential relationship with a neighbor, Coraline (Erika Alexander), a recently divorced public defender. Some extra money, and frustration, comes from being a jury member for a literary award with his would-be nemesis Sintara Golden and ends up judging his own secret book, a favorite of the white jury members.

Wright, who conveys so much while seeming to do so little, is grumpy and frustrated but not without reason and a lighter, even happy, side comes out in early scenes with Tracee Ellis Ross as his sister and later in scenes with Erika Alexander. Sterling K. Brown, who earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance, also does a great job handling comedy, drama, and believability. Each character feels like a person that you might know or maybe recognize in yourself. They also feel like they have lives outside of each other. Jefferson’s screenplay, adapted from the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett, allows each character layers and dimensions; no one is only one thing. 

Most, but not all, of the comedy comes in the scenes dealing with the literary world. Monk has to pretend to be the escaped convict turned novelist Stagg R. Leigh which makes for some awkward and funny scenes. He does everything he can think of to kill the novel once he realizes that no one got the joke, but nothing will stop the hilariously obsequious, and ever frightened of offending, white publishing executives. Also, anyone who took any writing classes or advanced literature courses will very likely recognize the personality types of the three white literary award judges. 

Jefferson includes some broad stylistic choices, some of which might be more welcome than others depending on your sensibilities. When Monk writes My Pafology we see the characters from his novel spring to life in front of him and act out his writing. When he gets stuck, one of the characters (played by the great Keith David) turns and questions Monk. The ending is a bit of a departure from the rest of the film. Things don’t wrap up nicely with a bow and closure on each plot point, but life rarely wraps up that way.

Best Pictures #97: Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: The Zone of Interest

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #97: Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

The Zone of Interest

“I wasn't really paying attention... I was too busy thinking how I would gas everyone in the room.”

There are several scenes of pleasant sunny days in the countryside: picnics, swimming, horseback riding, a family enjoying each other’s company, enjoying their lives. Everything on screen is meant to evoke the word “idyllic.” It certainly seems that way, but the family is that of Rudolph Höss, the commandant of the Auschwitz death camp, and the camp itself is right on the other side of the wall of the family’s country estate. Nothing in The Zone of Interest, the first film in 10 years from director Jonathan Glazer, is played for shock or sensation. Unlike other Holocaust films, The Zone of Interest aims to unsettle and disturb its audience not in showing the atrocities inside Auschwitz but the cold indifference outside of Auschwitz. The film succeeds in this though that cold indifference hardly comes as a revelation.

There is very little story or plot. Glazer’s screenplay kept little of the novel by Martin Amis, aside from the premise and title. We do not get to know Rudolph Höss (Christian Friedel) or his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), so much as we observe them. There are very few close ups, no discussions of ideology or race or religion. The camera stays back and we catch snippets of their lives: the children show off collections of teeth they’ve found; Hedwig tries on a fur coat stolen from the latest group of victims; Hedwig’s mother wonders if her Jewish former employer is at the camp; the industrial sounds of trains and smokestacks mixed with distant shouting and gunshots are part of the everyday background noise. The closest the film comes to a plot is Hedwig’s concern over Rudolph’s transfer (he’s so good at his job he’s been promoted to an administrative position in Berlin) which threatens to disrupt or even end the lifestyle she loves (she is the “queen of Auschwitz” after all). 

Glazer, a music video director turned arthouse movie director, has managed to build a cult following around each of his films (Sexy Beast, Birth, Under the Skin). The Zone of Interest represents his most widely acclaimed film earning 5 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director for Glazer. However, this is still an art film with experimental elements. It begins with about two minutes of black screen with discordant music. At one point there is a flash to a solid red screen. A scene of a girl hiding apples in a field is shown in polarized black and white (in the background of a later scene we hear a guard shouting at a prisoner about an apple). These abstract flourishes function like unexpected and jarring punctuation but do not necessarily enhance the viewing experience. The only affecting flourish comes close to the end and involves a flash forward in time. 

We never see inside the death camp. This film means to unsettle us with what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” A scene of  concentration camp commandants discussing what to do about the Hungarian Jews plays like a bland bureaucratic office meeting. To everyone in that room it was, and to the Höss family the regular eruption of the smokestacks on the other side of the brick wall was more than normal. It was acceptable. Their lives were calm and mundane because they thought there was nothing wrong with the industrialized evil of the Nazis. The closest the film comes to a hateful outburst is Hedwig coldly telling her Polish house servant, “I could have my husband spread your ashes across the fields of Babice.”

The Zone of Interest is well-done on just about every technical level, including the subdued performances from Friedel and Hüller, but overall it falls short of being an arresting film. Its detachment from the characters is meant to emphasize the detachment the characters have from the atrocities despite their physical proximity and involvement. That detachment, though key to the approach of director Glazer, makes for an intellectually interesting film but not an engaging one. The weight of what we see and don't see and only hear comes inherently from the subject matter and whatever knowledge of the Holocaust the viewer brings with them. The Zone of Interest is only effective when taken as part of the larger range of the Holocaust on film, including films like Schindler’s List, The Grey Zone, and the profoundly affecting, epic length documentary Shoah.

Best Pictures #96: 2023 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: The Holdovers

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #96: 2023 (96th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

The Holdovers

“Such are the vicissitudes of life.”

There are plenty of movies that deal with how the holidays can make people feel miserable. The Holdovers, director Alexander Payne’s latest movie, set over the Christmas break of 1970-71 at a prestigious New England boarding school, is different from those because it is about people who would rather not be miserable. Ancient civilizations teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) would rather spend his break reading mystery novels. Rebellious student Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) would rather be in St. Kitts. Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s kitchen manager, would rather be with her son, who was recently killed in Vietnam. They end up more or less stuck together at the empty school and as the dreary days pass they slowly but surely open up and find unlikely comfort and joy. It’s a story we’ve seen before but rarely done so well. Payne’s previous collaboration with Giamatti resulted in Sideways (2003), probably Payne’s best film and one of Giamatti’s best performances. The results here are thankfully similar. 

David Hemingson’s original screenplay was written especially for Giamatti, who once again works wonders with a prickly character. As much as Paul resembles Giamatti’s character from Sideways (both are well educated misanthropes who end up on a road trip), he has much more in common with another notable Giamatti performance: John Adams. Both Paul and John Adams are well educated New England intellectuals who attended Harvard, are privileged but are conscious of the conditions the less privileged, are disdainful of the rich and undeserving elites they have to work with, are both hurt by and enjoy their isolation from their peers, and are aware that they are, to quote Adams, “obnoxious and disliked.” John Adams is an irritable personality but Giamatti makes him understandable and likable; he does the same for Paul. 

As punishment for failing the son of a rich politician, Paul is assigned to look after the students that are not able to go home for Christmas break: the holdovers. An amusing and welcome plot contrivance whisks the other boys away to a vacation with the father of one of the richer holdovers leaving only Angus behind, much to the equal dismay of Angus and Paul. Angus is played wonderfully by Dominic Sessa in his impressive screen debut. He is troubled and rebellious but far from a bad student or person. The revelation of Angus’s family troubles and how he deals with them feels free of dramatic contrivance. 

Da’Vine Joy Randolph has rightfully earned much praise and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance. We learn early on that her son attended the boarding school on a scholarship but because she could not afford to send him to college he was drafted and died in Vietnam. Randolph’s Mary is not a sad-sack or a worn down character. On the contrary, she comes across as the most put together of the trio, but melancholy looms over her and finally spills over at a Christmas Eve party in a subdued but emotional, and therefore instantly believable, scene.

Alexander Payne went out of his way to make The Holdovers look like it was made during the era in which it is set. As a fan of films of that period I must say he succeeded. Though the late 1960’s and early 1970’s are remembered as a time of vibrant colors, the films from that period look drab and devoid of color and The Holdovers captures that look. It opens with a period accurate Universal Studios logo, a trend and pet peeve of mine, but it delivers on that promise. The score genuinely sounds like an original score from an early 70’s movie, vaguely folkish and wistful. There is plenty of period music but none of the “needle drops” are obvious or feel like a compilation of the best-of-the-1970’s. The most notable music sequence is an extended ice skating scene from Paul and Angus’s “field trip” to Boston set to Cat Stevens’s poignant and magical "The Wind." Like many films of that New Hollywood era, the screenplay is very light on plot and is more or less an assemblage of scenes that show an understated journey of personal growth. The side effect of this is that there are a few scenes that are entertaining but ultimately superfluous. The Holdovers brought to mind the films of Hal Ashby, director of Harold and Maude (1971) and The Last Detail (1973), which was likely the intent of director Payne, and this is a good thing. However, Ashby, who began his career as an editor, would likely have made a slimmer but equally affecting film.

The Holdovers is streaming on Peacock Premium and available on DVD/Blu-Ray.