I recently went to the
movies
, where I was confronted on the screen by minor miracles: two well-crafted films that are smart, brave, and aimed at adults. And they have nothing to do with superheroes.
The films are The Holdovers and American Fiction.
The Holdovers
is about the relationship that develops between three people who are left stranded at an expensive private school for Christmas. The second film, American Fiction, didn’t play,
but the trailer did
. That was enough to leave the jaws of those seated around me on the floor.
With what looks like brutal satire, American Fiction tackles the phenomenon of white elites in the media, academia, and publishing world who satisfy their own egos by making black authors sound more “street” and “authentic” at the expense of more gifted black writers. It’s a savage takedown of the condescension liberalism holds toward black people.
The best part is neither film felt the need to insert the superficial action and predictable plot that too often accompanies the superhero genre. “Lackluster storytelling and the gatekeeping of interconnected story arcs have led to superhero fatigue,” movie critic Brandon Towns recently wrote.
Director
James Gunn
put it this way: “I get fatigued by most spectacle films, by the grind of not having an emotionally grounded story. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether they’re superhero movies or not.”
Also, as the movies get louder and more explosive, the stakes get smaller. Superheroes die and then get brought back to life, sometimes several times. It takes all the drama out of the story and panders to an audience that won’t accept real consequences.
In The Holdovers, written by David Hemingson and directed by Alexander Payne, actor
Paul Giamatti
plays Paul Hunnam, a teacher of ancient history at a prestigious New England boarding school called Barton Academy. Hunnam is bilious, sarcastic, and a tough grader. He’s also funny and knows his ancient history, finding a way to quote the Greeks or cite a Roman battle in every situation — even at a bowling alley.
His student Angus Tully (played by Dominic Sessa) is bright yet troubled by some family problems back home. After his suitcase is packed for vacation, Angus learns that his mother and new stepfather are spending Christmas in the Caribbean. Angus is forced to stay at Barton for two weeks under Paul’s supervision. Angus is a “holdover,” or a student who can’t get home for the holidays. Joining them is the school cafeteria manager, Mary Lamb (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph). It’s Mary’s first Christmas since her son, a Barton graduate, died serving in the Vietnam War.
These are beautifully drawn three-dimensional characters, and the journey they take together getting to know each other when school is not in session is fascinating and real.
The Holdovers is set in 1970, and the film reminded me of what has been called the “shadow cinema” of that decade. In
his book
Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You: The Shadow Cinema of the American ‘70s, critic Charles Taylor celebrates the movies of the 1970s that treated the audience like adults. These were films in the spot between greats such as The Godfather or The French Connection and exploitative grindhouse features. Shadow cinema was made up of movies such as Prime Cut (1972), Vanishing Point (1971), Cisco Pike (1972), Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), American Hot Wax (1978), and the Pam Grier blaxploitation vehicles Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974).
“For me, the staying power of these movies has to do with the way they stand in opposition to the current juvenile state of American movies,” Taylor wrote. “The infantilization of American movies that began in 1977 with the unprecedented success of Star Wars has become total. Mainstream movie-making now caters almost exclusively to the tastes of the adolescent male fan.”
The shadow cinema was often not great cinema. (Genres included horror movies, biker pictures, women’s prison pictures, moonshiner documentaries, and exploitation movies.) But the films offered an ambiguity that didn’t “hold the realities of human behavior hostage to ideology,” as Taylor put it. A character could have an abortion yet also feel terrible about it. Films could love America yet see its flaws.
Most refreshingly, protagonists sometimes didn’t win in the end (take, for example, The Bad News Bears). In these films, Taylor found “the connection to the world, and to real-life emotions — not to mention the craft — that today’s blockbusters and remakes and churned out franchises work so hard to avoid.”
The Holdovers, which is great, by the way, is about those real-life emotions. And if the trailer is any indication, American Fiction is going to offer brave social commentary that Marvel movies wouldn’t dare touch. It’s about time.
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Mark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of
The Devil’s
Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi
. He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep,Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.
I recently went to the movies, where I was confronted on the screen by minor miracles: two well-crafted films that are smart, brave, and aimed at adults. And they have nothing to do with superheroes. Read More