Alexander Payne’s film The Holdovers is included on the 2027 VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL) Text List.
Set at an elite New England boarding school during the Christmas break of 1970, the film centres on teacher Paul Hunham, student Angus Tully and school cook Mary Lamb. As the three characters are brought together over the holiday period, the film explores loneliness, grief, class, privilege, responsibility, connection and the possibility of change.
For VCE English and EAL teachers, The Holdovers offers rich opportunities for close film analysis. It is also a text in which students need to move beyond discussing character development and consider how Payne uses setting, cinematography, editing, sound, performance and recurring visual details to shape meaning.
This guide outlines some of the key ideas, film techniques and teaching considerations that may be useful when planning a unit on The Holdovers.
What is The Holdovers about?
The Holdovers follows a small group of students who remain at Barton Academy over the Christmas holidays because they cannot return home.
After circumstances reduce the group further, Paul Hunham, Angus Tully and Mary Lamb are left together at the school.
At first, they appear to have little in common. Hunham is rigid and unpopular, Angus is angry and unsettled, and Mary is grieving the death of her son.
As the film develops, however, the relationships between them become increasingly important. Payne gradually reveals the experiences, disappointments and losses that shape each character while also examining the social structures surrounding them.
The result is a film that is both intimate and socially observant.
Key ideas in The Holdovers
Isolation and connection
Isolation is central to the film.
The Christmas setting intensifies the sense that Hunham, Angus and Mary have been left behind while other people return to families, homes and celebrations.
Yet physical isolation also creates the conditions for unexpected connection.
As the characters spend more time together, they begin to recognise aspects of one another that were initially hidden by hostility, assumptions or social roles.
Students can consider how Payne suggests that connection often depends on people becoming willing to see beyond first impressions.
Grief and loss
Loss shapes each of the central characters in different ways.
Mary’s grief is the most explicit, but Angus and Hunham also carry forms of disappointment, rejection and emotional pain.
The film does not present grief as something that can simply be resolved. Instead, it explores how loss continues to influence behaviour, relationships and expectations.
Students can examine the ways Payne presents grief through dialogue, silence, performance, setting and the contrast between moments of celebration and private sadness.
Class and privilege
Barton Academy is an elite institution, and class is woven throughout the film.
The school presents itself as a place of tradition, achievement and opportunity, but the film repeatedly reveals inequalities beneath that image.
Some characters are protected by wealth, influence or social status, while others are expected to accept consequences they did not create.
Students can consider how Payne critiques privilege without reducing every character to a simple representative of class.
Authority and rebellion
Hunham initially appears to embody institutional authority, while Angus frequently resists rules and expectations.
However, the film complicates this opposition.
As students learn more about both characters, authority and rebellion become less straightforward. Hunham himself has reasons to distrust the institution he serves, while Angus’s behaviour is shaped by experiences that are not immediately visible.
This provides useful opportunities to discuss when rules protect people, when institutions fail them, and when rebellion can become a response to injustice or neglect.
Unlikely relationships and found family
One of the film’s most important developments is the changing relationship between Hunham, Angus and Mary.
Their connection is not sentimental or effortless. They argue, misunderstand one another and retain significant differences.
Yet the film gradually constructs a form of temporary family between them.
Students can consider what makes these relationships meaningful and why Payne avoids presenting emotional connection as something neat or idealised.
Growth and change
The Holdovers is interested in whether people can change.
The film does not suggest that transformation requires a complete reinvention of personality. Instead, change often occurs through small decisions, acts of empathy and moments of self-recognition.
Students can therefore examine which characters change, how they change, and whether the film suggests that growth is permanent, partial or uncertain.
Film techniques students should analyse
Students studying The Holdovers need to move beyond identifying what happens in a scene and analyse how Payne shapes the viewer’s response.
Important techniques include:
- cinematography and shot selection
- close-ups, long shots and framing
- camera movement
- editing and pacing
- mise-en-scène
- costume
- lighting
- setting
- music and sound
- silence
- dialogue
- performance and facial expression
- colour and visual texture
- juxtaposition and contrast
- recurring visual details and motifs.
Students should continually ask:
How does this film choice influence the way we understand the character, relationship or idea?
For example, identifying a wide shot of Barton Academy becomes much more useful when students explain how the imposing school environment contributes to ideas about tradition, isolation or institutional authority.
The importance of setting
Setting is especially significant in The Holdovers.
Barton Academy is not simply a backdrop. Its architecture, traditions and routines help establish the values and power structures of the institution.
During the Christmas break, the normally busy school becomes unusually empty.
This changes the meaning of the setting. Corridors, classrooms and dormitories can feel isolating rather than prestigious, while the absence of the wider school community creates space for the central characters to interact differently.
The film also moves beyond Barton, allowing students to consider how changes in setting alter the relationships between characters and reveal aspects of their lives that the school environment conceals.
Teaching students to analyse character without retelling the plot
Because The Holdovers has strong central performances and clear character arcs, students can easily fall into plot-based discussion.
A useful distinction is between:
what a character does
and
what Payne suggests through the way the character is presented.
Instead of simply writing that Hunham becomes more sympathetic, students should consider how Payne constructs that shift.
Which scenes change the viewer’s understanding of him? How do dialogue, performance, camera work and setting contribute? What does this development suggest about judgement, empathy or responsibility?
This shift helps students move from character description to genuine film analysis.
Context and the world of the film
Relevant context can help students understand the social world of The Holdovers.
Teachers may wish to provide background on:
- American boarding-school culture
- class and social hierarchy
- the Vietnam War and military draft
- educational privilege
- racial inequality in the United States
- social expectations of the early 1970s.
However, contextual knowledge should support textual analysis rather than replace it.
Students still need to focus on how Payne constructs these issues within the film.
A possible teaching sequence for The Holdovers
1. Introduce the film and its setting
Establish the basic social, historical and institutional context of Barton Academy and the early 1970s.
2. Develop film-analysis skills
Explicitly teach students how cinematography, editing, mise-en-scène, sound, performance and setting create meaning.
3. Track the central characters
Examine the initial presentation of Hunham, Angus and Mary and identify the assumptions viewers are encouraged to make about each one.
4. Explore relationships
Analyse how the connections between the central characters change and what enables those changes to occur.
5. Develop key ideas
Move from individual scenes towards broader ideas such as isolation, grief, class, privilege, authority, connection and change.
6. Analyse significant scenes closely
Students can examine how multiple techniques work together within important scenes rather than analysing techniques in isolation.
7. Develop analytical paragraphs
Students can practise constructing interpretations, selecting evidence and explaining how Payne’s choices communicate ideas.
8. Progress towards complete analytical responses
Students can then plan and write sustained responses to a range of text-response topics.
Questions students can consider while studying The Holdovers
- How does Payne explore the difference between isolation and loneliness?
- What allows unexpected relationships to develop?
- How does grief affect the way characters relate to others?
- How does the film expose the limits of privilege?
- When does authority become unfair or harmful?
- Why does Angus resist the expectations placed upon him?
- How does Payne challenge the viewer’s initial judgement of Hunham?
- What role does Mary play in the changing relationship between Hunham and Angus?
- How does Barton Academy function as more than simply a setting?
- What does the film suggest about the possibility of personal change?
- How do small acts of empathy alter relationships?
- To what extent does the film present its central characters as a temporary family?
These questions can provide a useful bridge between classroom discussion and analytical writing.
The Holdovers VCE English and EAL teaching resources
For teachers looking to reduce preparation time, Lesson Ready offers a complete 12-lesson VCE English and EAL unit for The Holdovers.
The unit supports students as they move from understanding the film and its context towards close scene analysis, interpretation and analytical writing.
Resources include:
- editable lesson slideshows
- editable student worksheets
- detailed sample answers
- contextual activities
- analysis of significant scenes and relationships
- explicit study of film techniques
- exploration of key ideas
- analytical writing activities
- essay preparation and practice.
Because the resources are editable, teachers can adapt lessons and activities to suit their own classes.
Teachers who do not require the complete unit can also access individual lessons for The Holdovers.
Lesson Ready also offers Additional Resources for the film, including a detailed scene analysis chart covering all 19 chapters of the film in both student and sample-answer versions, as well as sample essay topics.
Lesson Ready also provides Listening Tasks for The Holdovers for eligible schools. These audio-based assessment resources include student worksheets, sample answers and marking guidance, and are supplied to schools via purchase order rather than as instant downloads.
Preparing to teach The Holdovers in 2027
The Holdovers gives students an accessible narrative while still offering considerable analytical depth.
Its strongest teaching opportunities lie in helping students recognise that the film’s emotional impact is not created by character development alone. Payne’s use of setting, visual composition, performance, sound and structure shapes the way viewers understand isolation, grief, privilege, connection and change.
A unit that combines contextual understanding, explicit film analysis and close attention to relationships can help students move from simply responding to the characters to developing sustained interpretations of Payne’s ideas.