‘The Holdovers’ trailer: Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti reunite for new comedy [Watch]

Christopher Rosen
·3 min read
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The last time Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti worked together the result was “Sideways,” the 2004 drama that won Payne an Oscar for adapted screenplay and left Giamatti on the list of egregious Best Actor snubs after the academy shunned the star for his performance. (Giamatti was nominated the following year in the Best Supporting Actor category for “Cinderella Man.”)

Now the two are back together for the upcoming Focus Features comedy-drama “The Holdovers,” a potential return to form for Payne after the mixed response to his 2017 movie “Downsizing.”

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Focus released the first trailer for “The Holdovers” on Monday, a throwback piece of marketing that looks like it could have been put together in the 1980s or 1990s. Here’s the logline for the film, which also stars Da’Vine Joy Randolph and newcomer Dominic Sessa: “A curmudgeonly instructor (Giamatti) at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas 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 (Sessa) — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Randolph).”

Focus is set to debut “The Holdovers” in limited release on October 27 before a nationwide bow on November 10. Whether the film goes to one of the fall festivals is unknown at this time.

Speaking to Deadline last year after “The Holdovers” was sold to Focus for a record deal at the Toronto International Film Festival, Payne said he had long hoped to reunite with Giamatti. “Ever since I worked with Paul in ‘Sideways,’ I’ve wanted to work with him again, and this role is tailor-made for him,” Payne said. “I continue to think now as I did then. … I hate to use the term ‘the finest actor of his generation’ because there are so many wonderful actors, but when I worked with him on ‘Sideways,’ I was astounded by his range. As a director, you want actors who can make even bad dialogue work, and he can do that. He can just do anything. I think it’s a matter of time before he gets his Oscar.”

Giamatti is already a top contender to land among the 2024 Oscar Best Actor nominees.

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