A grumpy classics teacher at a New England prep school is forced to supervise the students who cannot go home over Christmas break. An unlikely bond forms between the teacher, a grieving cook and a difficult student. I feel like Alexander Payne's film is a comedy about walls coming down.
The Holdovers is a 2023 drama and comedy film directed by Alexander Payne. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 narrative and 2 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Lady Bird uses several of the same techniques.
Pairing characters from opposite social worlds who find each other strange. Their friction produces the comedy, and what they learn from each other produces the emotion.
How this film uses it
Hunham is the rigidly principled classicist and Angus is the defiant student, and they are mirror images. Both are isolated because they refuse to act the way the Barton Academy world expects. Their hostility hides the same loneliness.
Where to see it
Hunham and Angus's first proper conversation. As they spar, you start to see 2 people who understand each other's contempt for the institution they're both trapped in.
Treating a small town as more than a setting. Its buildings, lighting and relationships show the community's values and limits, which shape what the characters can do and what gets destroyed.
How this film uses it
The prep school campus sets the film's map of class. On the holiday trip to Boston, Hunham and Angus meet the world outside the bubble. Those sequences are the film's moral education.
Where to see it
Hunham and Angus on the trip to Boston, which includes the Museum of Fine Arts and ice skating. The prep school hierarchy is suspended for a while. Both of them are more human there than in any classroom.
Switching to a clearly different look and mood from one part to the next, either between chapters of 1 film or between a film and its sequel.
How this film uses it
Payne moves from dry academic comedy through real warmth into open grief. You learn early that Mary's son was killed in Vietnam, and his death sits underneath the holiday charm the whole time. The change of tone shows you what the comedy was protecting.
Where to see it
Mary's grief over Curtis at the Christmas Eve party. The film's comedy suddenly carries the weight of the grief it has been holding back.
Changing the color, film texture and camera style for each time period, and using the fashion and architecture of the day. Every era gets its own distinct feel.
How this film uses it
Eigil Bryld shot digitally on an Arri Alexa with Panavision lenses, and film emulation and color grading were added in post-production. The goal was a look that recalls films from 1970. The film ends up feeling like an object discovered from its own period.
Where to see it
The film's opening titles and visual texture. The retro title cards and the color are so accurate to the period that the 1970 setting feels like something found.
Questions
The Holdovers: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does The Holdovers use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in The Holdovers (2023): Odd Couple Class Structure, Small Town as Moral Geography, Tonal Succession and Era-Coded Visual Grammar.
Who directed The Holdovers?
Alexander Payne directed The Holdovers, released in 2023. CineCode also covers Downsizing (2017).
What films are similar to The Holdovers?
Films that share techniques with The Holdovers include Lady Bird (2017), Downsizing (2017), 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026), It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
