1970, New England. The students and teachers of Barton Academy are packing up to head home for Christmas, but for some there is no home to go to and “The Holdovers” will need to spend Christmas on campus. 

Classics teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is the most disliked person at school and as such draws the short straw to look after the unlucky students with no where to go. Alongside grieving cook Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and mixed up teenager Angus (Dominic Sessa) he will form part of a makeshift family who help each other through a difficult period as they learn more about themselves. 

The Holdovers may sound like it will be preachy or even a rote coming of age tale. But in fact it is one of the most uproariously funny films in some time mixed in with some Christmas spirit and emotional heft. 

Director Alexander Payne last teamed up with Paul Giamatti in the superb Sideways released in 2004 and on the basis of this effort I think I would like to see them do so more often. 

Giamatti’s Hunham is an utterly sad, vindictive little man. With very little joy in his own life he takes pleasure in making his students lives as difficult as possible under the pretext that there should be no free rides. It is hard to disagree with the sentiment but the manner in which he goes about it is somewhat unfeeling. His insults and retorts throughout the film are utterly brilliant and hilariously funny. Over the course of the film we will see his character thaw out and learn that there is more to life than Barton Academy and ensuring that the students within are put through their trials. He is Scrooge and Mary and Angus are his ghosts teaching him about the breadth of human emotion. 

Randolph’s Mary has recently lost her son to the Vietnam War. Grieving and numb she provides Hunham with direction and pragmatic advice on how to deal with kids. Whilst Sessa’s Angus has been abandoned by his newly married mother and is mixed up about what that means to his relationship with his father. Whilst Hunham may not be the best surrogate father it does provide him with a different perspective on life. 

Brilliantly funny and genuinely uplifting this may be a new Christmas classic to bring out each year.