The Holdovers implies that festive rituals intensify the pain of those excluded from them. To what extent do you agree?

Returning to a Vietnam War-era America fractured by inequality and institutional neglect, Alexander Payne’s 2023 film The Holdovers unfolds in December 1970, interrogating how the cultural expectation of holiday togetherness isolates those deprived of familial and societal shelter.¹ While the film reveals to a considerable extent that festive rituals deepen the anguish of those excluded from conventional belonging, it simultaneously exposes how such shared exclusion fosters a solidarity that provides the care withheld by indifferent institutions.² Payne therefore challenges his twenty-first-century audience to recognise that the pursuit of seasonal convenience often relinquishes responsibility towards the vulnerable, locating genuine fellowship in the willingness to accept the personal cost of protecting the marginalised.³

Payne initially presents the seasonal focus on family as an amplifier of absence, revealing how the enforced joy of the holidays deepens the bereavement of those denied the protection of wealth.⁴ Mary’s admission that she "didn't have the money" to secure Curtis's higher education despite his exceptional intellect reflects a society in which economic disadvantage denies protection to those most dependent on its care.⁵ When followed by Paul’s subdued acknowledgement that he is "so sorry", Payne conveys the personal compassion absent from the institutions that determine Curtis’s fate, while the cross-cuts between them draw the two figures into shared sorrow as Mary recalls how "no student deferment" left Curtis surrendering to wartime conscription. Amidst the bleak December winter when the draft drew the unprivileged into war, the television’s glare across Mary’s face within the low-key lighting intensifies her grief at having "Curtis in the cold ground" while wealthy pupils remain sheltered from the same fate. Through this disparity, Payne exposes a social order that renders protection contingent upon wealth, intensifying the pain of exclusion for those left behind. This structural abandonment finds its private counterpart in Angus's familial rejection, as the expectation of holiday reunion dissolves into isolating detachment.⁶ Angus’s sense of familial security unravels as the structures entrusted with his care fail him, his incredulous protest at only being "t[old]…this now" exposing the abruptness with which parental convenience fractures the expectation of enduring care.⁷ Payne’s slow optical cross-dissolve superimposes Angus’s departing figure upon his image confined within the administrative office, visually dissolving the prospect of departure into the sterility of institutional custody. Registering the fracture in Angus’s relationship with his mother, whose appeal over the receiver for his "staying at school over break" prioritises her new marriage, Payne renders maternal care conditional upon personal convenience. Angus’s deflated body language and slumped posture as his face falls against the booth’s glass following his unanswered "and what about Boston" register his shift from protest to resignation, revealing how the withdrawal of care leaves him powerless to assert his own needs. In isolating the abandoned beneath the veneer of holiday cheer, Payne reveals how institutional and familial neglect displaces the collective obligation to care onto individuals, making seasonal exclusion an experience of rejection rather than mere physical separation.⁸