Nice: The Holdovers (2023)
Paul Giamatti may be a perpetual Grinch in his Golden Globe Award-winning performance as boarding school dictator teacher Paul Hunham in The Holdovers, but that just makes the Christmas joy he helps engineer all the more sacred and earned. No one should be alone on Christmas, and The Holdovers immaculately demonstrates that as Hunham, petulant student Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), and grieving cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) are all stuck at Barton Academy boarding school over the holidays, life passing each of them by in particular ways. They band together and help each other reconnect with family and the joy of life. That’s as Christmas as it’s going to get.
