The Holdovers in January 2025
The Sacred Masculine Awaits
Screenwriter: David Hemingson
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Paul Giamatti, Jim Kaplan
Dear Damsels in Distress,
Are you out there anymore? Because it just seems like men and boys are the ones who need saving these days.
Let’s jump in and help!
The performances of the young men in he 2023 film The Holdovers broke my heart, they were so good. I know I am late to the plate on this film, because it won Academy Awards last year, and I just never sought it out to watch it. I take my time, and I know things come to us when we’re ready—not when we force an experience because someone else said it mattered.
I am a mother and a teacher, and what I realized in watching these young men at an all-boys boarding school, was that young men need so much mothering, softness, love and care, if they are going to be in any way successful in this world. By success, I don’t mean “making lots of money,” “having prestige,” and that jawn. Success, in my opinion, is keeping and nurturing your soft and warm heart, maintaining compassion despite life’s setbacks, and adhering to the inner knowing that your life is worth living.
Teenage boys (and men, too) may act and say they don’t need softness and love, and they may actually fight it when it shows up. Teenagers, especially, may get angry at their parents or authority figures because deep down, they need to find their own way, and they want to know who is “right,” and they are not seeing people show up and do the right thing often enough. Despite their resistance, we know they do need love, attention, kindness, and home-cooked meals. They need the feminine to awaken and enlighten, in the gentlest of ways—which is what Mary Lamb (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph) does. At the same time, they are looking to older men to figure out what it means to be a man, and what kind of man they are going to be.
There are a lot of guys out there, doing weird stuff, making decisions that aren’t so great. And then there are men of integrity and light, who step up and make hard choices (even when it hurts), who try to instill discipline (even if it’s too much), and who find pockets of love in their heart to consistently guide young people through the treasure of adolescence, which only comes around once. (Unless a person doesn’t grow up, in which case adolescence might last into his 80s.)
My point is, I love these films where older men—who are human, with good hearts, and an acknowledgment of their weaknesses—guide younger men the best they can, and give them an alternate and friendlier take on life. It happens in The Karate Kid, Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, and beyond. Teenagers need someone outside their own typical milieu to give them guidance and advice. Conversely, as a mother, my wish has always been to protect kids—sometimes too much—from the realities of life, which is that it is challenging, and people disappoint you, and things don’t always work out the way you want them to. I wish I had known earlier what Titilope Sonuga teaches in her poem, “Swim.” She says we cannot save kids. We can only teach them to swim.
In my Ms. Wonderful opinion, Angus Tully (played by Dominic Sessa—of CHERRY HILL, NEW JERSEY!) is worthy of an Oscar for this role. I am not sure why he was overlooked in his category. I guess because the Oscars are just one little blip in the world of art-making. I was thoroughly impressed with his performance, and my heart was tugged the entire time by his ability to bring truth to the screen.
I also, especially, loved the scene with Ye-Joon Park (played by Jim Kaplan) where—in the middle of the night—he opens up about his fears and despair. Most people don’t have the audacity to let that out. Instead they bury it inside and it becomes an illness. I will never forget that scene and his performance, and if I were a movie director, I’d put my sights on that actor pretty fast.
When family disappoints you—as it does for many of these young men, especially Angus—at least there are friends who show up, even if they don’t seem like friends at first. Mr. Hunham (played by Paul Giamatti) is almost stupidly strict, but we learn that his rigidity and “discipline” is really the toxic outpouring of the unlived life inside him. People with unlived lives tend to take it out on someone else, or a group of people. In this case, Mr. Hunham takes it out on his students, because he is hiding his own hurts and wounds from young adulthood. People who are unnecessarily punitive toward others are usually just hurt inside. People who are healed and honest tend to be kind, generous, and gracious. Mr. Hunham is nice to the adult women, but has a teenage boy inside him who he hasn’t learned to love. That is why he struggles to love his students. Yet he and Angus develop a bond that cannot be broken, through the dark circumstances of both of their lives.
What is love? I think love is stepping back so another can step forward. Love is looking out for another person more than you look out for yourself. Love is admitting your weaknesses, your flaws, your pain points, and sitting with the faith and trust and hope that someone won’t use them to try to hurt you. And if that happens, love sprouts again, christened with wisdom, time, and grace.
Each time a man in this movie showed vulnerability and a softened heart, he found a friend, and the meaning of love.
This January, Americans will watch a man take office who is full of anger and animosity, blaming, and a really rigid jaw—on the same day as we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was truly called by God, for the purpose of diplomacy and equality.
Life does throw us lemons, and lemonade, and curve balls, and house plants, and jingle bells, don’t it?
What are we gonna catch, and what are we going to let go of?
What are we going to create?
You have a say in that. Each one of us does, regardless of the names on any country’s ballot.
I treasure this film, The Holdovers. It is just an enormous treasure.
Namaste,
Ms. Wonderful
See the poem performance I mention above, of Titilope Sonuga’s “Swim.”
On a different note, I made a comedy film for Rose Woods TV (on YouTube) about the real Santa and Mrs. Claus. Take a look.