Years ago, while visiting Florence, Italy’s famed Uffizi gallery, screenwriter David Hemingson found himself captivated by the famed painting of the holy family known as the Doni Tondo. That wouldn’t be noteworthy, given the work's notoriety, except for its role in inspiring “The Holdovers" and the three lonely people at its heart.
Like Michelangelo’s masterpiece, “The Holdovers,” directed by Alexander Payne, is a period piece set inside a memory bubble. The film rewinds to December 1970 and the cusp of Christmas break for Barton, an Ivy League feeder school for boys in suburban Massachusetts. While most students head home, the kids who cannot remain on school grounds, supervised by raspy classics teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), the least suited for the job.
