Weekend Watch: The Holdovers, Pain Hustlers

Paul Giamatti is a strict tutor and Emily Blunt's slinging pills

Image Credit: Focus Features

Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Alexander Payne goes back to school and Netflix has a comedy-drama take on the pain pill crisis. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite and Threads/Instagram: @jammerwhite

It has been six years since Alexander Payne released Downsizing and since then, he’s been mired in a period where various films he set up ended up not happening (at least not with him).

So, it’s good to be able to report that his return to cinemas with The Holdovers is a comfy triumph that works on various levels.

The Holdovers is the story of curmudgeonly instructor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) working at a New England prep school in 1970 who is forced to remain on campus during the holiday break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go.

Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).

It’s a relatively simple set-up, but the film has plenty of depth. Chief among them is another superb performance by Giamatti, who reunites with his Sideways director to excellent effect as they (along with writer David Hemingson) peel away the layers of this grouchy martinet to reveal the hidden pains beneath the surface. Hunham is a great creation, a man who doesn’t much seem to like the world around him and is crucially aware that the feeling is mutual.

You might imagine that Giamatti would act anyone else on the screen, but Sessa and Randolph are great at playing off of him, keying into what makes sense for their characters. Sessa, who makes his cinematic debut with the movie, is particularly impressive, and I’ve enjoyed Rudolph’s work since first encountering her in Dolemite Is My Name.

Together the three (plus a few other teachers and students) make for a fantastic ensemble comedy drama that is shot through with pathos and feelings even as it also makes you laugh. Payne is firing on all cylinders here, his re-teaming with Giamatti an excellent opportunity for both of them.

And given its Christmas setting, I am adding this to the list of films I would happily re-watch every festive season.

If I have one complaint about the film –– and it’s more a query than a true issue –– is the release plan. While it certainly merits an awards slot, putting a movie that is so clearly Christmassy long before or after the holidays feels like a strange decision to me, but one I hope won’t hurt the film.

The Holdovers is on limited release in New York and Los Angeles now, expanding wider on 3 and 10 November. It’ll be in UK cinemas on 19 January.

Image Credit: Netflix

Pain Hustlers, were it released in a vacuum, might have come across as fresher and more entertaining.

This is the story of Liza Drake (Emily Blunt), a blue-collar single mother who has just lost her job and is at the end of her rope. A chance meeting with pharmaceutical sales rep Pete Brenner (Chris Evans) puts her on an upward trajectory economically but dubious path ethically as she becomes entangled in a dangerous racketeering scheme.

Dealing with her increasingly unhinged boss (Andy Garcia), the worsening medical condition of her daughter (Chloe Coleman), and a growing awareness of the devastation the company is causing forces Liza to examine her choices…

As it stands, Pain Hustlers follows in the wake of Dopesick (which ended up winning awards) and Netflix’s own Painkiller, which took a harder-edged look at the same subject of the opioid crisis in the US.

And even with two actors in Blunt and Evans, who have been compelling and watchable in the past in the lead roles, the new film can’t drum up enough interest to have me recommend it wholeheartedly.

David Yates, who has spent the last 60 (all right, the last 16) years making either Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts films, was likely thrilled to take a break from Hogwarts and instead dive into sleazy Florida pill-pushing comedy drama. Yet for all the zippy tricks he lobs at the screen to make an inherently depressing story entertaining, this latest effort possesses little, well, magic.

There is certainly an absorbing story to be told about this subject. Unfortunately for Pain Hustlers, it has already been done better before.

Pain Hustlers is on Netflix now.