The comedy “The Leftovers” by Alexander Payne, winner of two Oscars for his screenplays for the films “Sideways” (2005) and “The Descendants” (2012), is being released worldwide. Over the Christmas holiday, a grumpy single teacher is left on the boarding school campus with several high school students who were not taken home. It is not difficult to predict the development of such a plot, but the director manages to surprise the viewer – and at the same time preserve the Christmas spirit in his melancholic film. Film critic Anton Dolin talks about the film.
Alexander Payne’s new film The Leftovers may lack the personality, temperament and energy to be considered a serious contender in this year’s awards race. However, the warm and heartfelt tone coupled with the seasonal flavor (the action begins in December and ends after New Year’s Eve) may earn The Leftovers a well-deserved place among the best Christmas movies of all time. Moreover, the author set the action in the early 1970s – this tragicomedy will not become outdated, because every frame of it is initially imbued with nostalgia for the past and unfulfilled hopes.
Paul Giamatti, a subtle and sensitive artist whose career breakthrough twenty years ago was Payne’s Sideways, plays a teacher named Paul Hanham. Having devoted his entire life to working at an elite boarding school somewhere in New England, he tortures high school students with ancient history year after year. Mischievous and snobby, Hanham is a bachelor without family or friends, and he has no favorites among his students. This “man in a case” seems to hate everyone equally, strictly following protocols and annoying even the director. Recently, a dunce and a rude son of an important sponsor was expelled from the school, and the administration rightfully considers Hanham responsible for this. As a kind of punishment, he is assigned to take care of several students who, for various reasons, are stuck at school during the Christmas holidays. This is where the film begins.
The script by David Hemingson is extremely well written. He forms a diverse group of “left behinds”, each of whom is in his own way annoyed and offended by the family that abandoned him at Christmas: a ruddy guy from a Mormon family, a quiet guy from Korea (flying to Seoul alone is too far and expensive), two majors from rich families – a hippie and a racist, as well as a rebel and a smart guy, Angus Tully, who challenges the teacher over and over again. His behind-the-scenes story is the most interesting and mysterious. We, of course, are waiting for the development that is natural for such an environment: inevitable conflicts, closer acquaintance, forced, and then sincere fraternization under a decorated Christmas tree. But the script offers an unexpected twist – in fact, a second plot.
“God ex machina” intervenes in the events, literally: the father of one of the schoolchildren descends from the sky in a helicopter and nevertheless takes his son along with other boys for the holidays, to go skiing. Three remain on the empty campus: the pedant Hanham, the completely crushed Tully (he was unable to call his mother for permission) and Mary, the school cook. Her son attended the same school, but had recently left to fight in Vietnam: in the 1970s, this was a rare possible “social lift” for an African-American. He died in the war.
What’s the formula for a good Christmas movie, whether comic or dramatic? (“The Leftovers” alternates these two intonations.) A lonely hero who finds, if not a family, then a replacement for it; ridiculous gifts that will nevertheless make someone happier; a miracle – no matter how small, but necessary; ideally, victory over the forces of evil, at least temporary, tactical. Much like with traditional Christmas dishes – the recipe is known all over the world, but few know how to cook them deliciously: it’s all in the details, nuances, and spices. And Payne is an expert at this.
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Having a great sense of the acting nature, being able to transform it if necessary, but more often – pulling out their unobvious abilities from the performers, the director with equal generosity bestows extraordinary roles on superstars (Jack Nicholson in the film About Schmidt, George Clooney in The Descendants) and young or little-known artists. In the case of The Leftovers, the latter are Dominic Sessa (Tully) and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Mary). The director carefully creates the illusion of authenticity in order to lift the characters and the audience out of the boring everyday life at unexpected moments and provide catharsis.
The Seventies spirit, expressed in the wardrobe and hairstyles, nostalgic soundtrack and clips from TV shows of the time, brings The Leftovers closer to one of the best American novels of recent years – Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads. This grandiose text is also dedicated to human frailty and the ability to forgive others and oneself – judging by the literature and cinema of New Hollywood, questions of ethical choice and compromise were especially acute in the United States in the 1970s. However, although hardly intentionally, Payne’s film also establishes its own relationship with modernity, introducing the theme of two parallel realities – a peaceful holiday and a military one.
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When Tully accidentally runs into local rednecks at a bar, one of them turns out to be a Vietnam veteran ready to beat up a privileged teenager at any moment; on the other hand, it is Mary, the inconsolable mother of a young man who died in the war, who is able to sympathize with the rejected, misunderstood boy. This line, poisoning the film’s syrupy premise, seems to naturally lead it to an ambivalent ending. And at the same time it reminds us that today, when we dive into the warm and cozy world of the cinematic past, another war is going on at arm’s length.
