Paul Giamatti

In The Holdovers (2023), Paul Hunham delivers dormitory rules as though he were addressing a jury. Giamatti lets the teacher enjoy his own severity, which makes him funnier and less predictable than a straightforward portrait of bitterness. We laughed aloud at that first address because of the pleasure he takes in laying down the law. He does not ask us to excuse Hunham, and we have time to grow fond of him before the script starts explaining why we should. It is a persuasive performance of a man who considers being correct sufficient compensation for being disliked.

The route to Hunham ran through supporting parts such as Simeon in The Truman Show (1998) and Sergeant Hill in Saving Private Ryan (1998). American Splendor (2003), in which he played Harvey Pekar, brought the breakthrough as a lead; Sideways (2004) established the disappointed, articulate man as his particular territory. As Miles Raymond in the latter, he began the collaboration with Alexander Payne that would bring him back to another dissatisfied man in The Holdovers. There has been substantial work between those leads, including the sustained television role of Chuck Rhoades in Billions (2016). But Payne remains the director to start with if we want to see what Giamatti does particularly well.

Much of Giamatti's skill lies in how he handles speech. Hunham quotes the ancients and fails boys for sport, yet his verbal confidence never makes him seem entirely secure. Giamatti can move from sharp comedy to vulnerability without making the difficult man disappear, and Payne gives that contradiction time to register. The director's fondness for men who have wasted themselves suits an actor who can make disappointment funny without making it trivial.

There is a danger of accepting the familiar sourness too readily, especially when the writing is less exact than the acting. David Hemingson's script for The Holdovers spells out its lesson more often than it needs to, and at 133 minutes the film dawdles. Giamatti carries more of it than an actor ought to have to, although the warmth he finds in Hunham makes the extra time easier to forgive. Start there, with the caveat that the dialogue will occasionally explain what his performance has already made clear.