It looks and feels like it was made in the 1970s, and shares that decade’s fascination with outliers, for the main trio are nothing if not outliers. The premise, borrowed from the 1935 French film Merlusse, is thus: The year is 1970. At an all-boys boarding school in New England, an unpopular teacher, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), is babysitting “the holdovers” over Christmas break. These are the kids who have nowhere to go and have to stay at school. Soon, through a series of fluky events, only one student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) remains. Teacher and student are accompanied only by the school cook, Mary Lamb (Da’vine Joy Randolph), and occasionally by the janitor, Danny (Naheem Garcia). As they all get to know each other better, their quirks and heartaches are exposed, and they form an uneasy family. But this is no Hallmark cheesefest. Director Alexander Payne and writer David Hemingson are interested in something more surprising and authentic than that, and everyone involved delivers.
Paula's Cinema Club 