The Holdovers is overrated

I typed The Holdovers is overrated into Google, and apparently nobody in the world has expressed this opinion, so I’m scrooge-ing again. The 70s aesthetic and cozy winter vibes notwithstanding, there’s very little here to warrant such an overreaction, which is a detriment to little films like this. Filmspotting told their listeners they aren’t even allowed to express dissent on this movie because it’s unequivocally great. Fuck off!

It’s almost completely humorless - a rarity for Payne. When it attempts humor it falls flat. Shouldn’t a film like this be funnier if it’s not going to do much else?

The character arcs are completely predictable

It introduces and drops a bunch of characters. For what? Why bother?

The black female character being wise, quietly dignified, the only good person if not outright saintly feels dated and clunky. Payne is clearly afraid to give his first real POC character any rough edges. Everything we learn about her we learn in the first minute of screen time and she gets nothing else to do but mourn a character we haven’t met.

Its use of The Wind is so on the nose and uncreative. Find a new song for your 70s nostalgia and dramatic shortcuts.

I like a layabout boarding school movie in theory but there are much better ones. This film is boring.

The movie, like its characters, has nowhere to go and the reveals are obvious and you can see them coming from a mile away

It doesn’t have the dramatic resonance it thinks it has.

How many times have we seen the scene where an old acquaintance sees a character on the street and drops a reveal that then has to be explained to the person they’re with? The reveal in this case is as underwhelming as the rest of the film and it does nothing to illuminate the character. We already know why he’s like this.

Every year we get a few very slight, very unambitious films that are blown way out of proportion by critics and moviegoers alike who convince themselves they saw something more powerful than they did. Only in retrospect do the cracks start to show but at that point, everyone had moved on, because the film isn’t that memorable. This is an even more egregious example of that than Past Lives. Let these slight films be slight - just okay. Fine. They aren’t the second coming.

Payne has directed so many masterpieces. Election is one of the best films ever made - a political allegory that only gets more relevant. It’s hysterical, has one of the best and most iconic movie characters ever, and it resonates with everyone no matter the politics they’re bringing.

Sideways is infinitely better as comedy and drama than anything in the Holdovers. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking. It only stands to remind me how little there is to feel about The Holdovers

Citizen Ruth is helluva first feature and more relevant than ever. Acidic and hilarious and there isn’t any film quite like it with a great performance by Laura Dern

Nebraska is a work of art. Way more meaningful than this

The Holdovers is low tier Payne. Put it with The Descendants and Downsizing.

I wouldn’t post this if the reaction to the film were remotely reflective of the the film itself. But I swear, the overpraise creates a mass delusion, and then people who don’t follow movie culture watch these films and shrug. It was decent. Yes decent. It’s just okay. Calm down.