Helga without the H

Every year* I attempt (with varying degrees of success and effort) to watch as many of that year’s Oscar nominees as possible. For the past few years* I’ve posted reviews of these movies here on this blog. At some point before the awards ceremony, I usually write up some sort of over-analysis and maybe some predictions, but we’ll see if I run out of steam before then. In the meantime, today we cover…

*Except 2022, when I was too burned out from 2021’s binge to give a crap.

The Holdovers

[5 nominations for best picture, actor (Paul Giamatti), supporting actress (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), original screenplay, and editing]

IS IT SALTBURN? Yeah.

The Holdovers was a wonderful film. When I first started ranting to my spouse about how none of the big nominees are Saltburn, The Holdovers was the immediate (and at that time, the only) film that I immediately identified as on-par with Saltburn. The Holdovers is Saltburn, but restrained and refined. No bathtub-licking here. Holdovers is every bit as smartly written and bitingly hilarious as Saltburn, but with a very different execution. Just like Saltburn, it transports the viewer into a very niche fancy school environment of the past, and it captures the feel and energy of that school superbly. But this is, of course, a very different school.

The Holdovers is a quiet movie, and relies heavily on the performances of its tiny cast, the strength of its script, and the scratchy brown 70’s vibe of the cinematography, editing, and production design departments. My husband’s main praise for The Holdovers was that it really felt like you were watching a movie from the 70’s. Films of that era just had that weird, quiet, 70’s vibe, you know? And this film nails that vibe.

The performances in this are great. Paul Giamatti is nominated for best actor, and it is exceedingly well-deserved. In fact, he is easily my personal pick to take the prize. But the film would have bombed without a just-as-capable performance by his costar Dominic Sessa. Alas, no nominations for him for some reason. I can’t understand this; how are you handing out nominations to DeNiro and Gosling in this category, but not including this kid who had to act his freaking face off? Unbelievable.

All that being said… I know I’m a negative nelly, but despite my love of this film, I’m confused by one of the nominations it did receive. I don’t understand why Da’Vine Joy Randolph is nominated. Maybe I need to go back and re-watch it, now that I know someone saw this and thought “Oh yeah, this lady deserves an Oscar for this.” But she really didn’t need to do much for most of the film. Like… she was totally fine. But… huh? I am missing something? That being said, I felt the same way about virtually every nomination in this category, so maybe it was just a bad year for supporting female roles?

Bottom line, while the slow-burn might not be for everyone, this was a wonderful film, and its best picture nomination is certainly well-deserved. (See, I’m not always a hater!)