In a delayed but delightful arrival for the UK’s post-festive season release schedule, Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers emerges as this January’s perfect antidote for the winter blues. Offering a genial, gentle, and redemptive story about personal growth, friendship and sacrifice, Payne’s film skilfully navigates the human condition with the Sideway director’s characteristic precision.

The Holdovers reunites Payne with Sideways star Paul Giamatti and features exquisite turns from Da’Vine Joy Randolph and newcomer Dominic Sessa.

New England, 1970. Paul Hunham (Giamatti), a taciturn Classics teacher has worked at the same exclusive prep school for decades. Disliked by almost everyone at the school for his crotchety exterior and unwillingness to bend the rules, Hunham finds himself on the receiving end of a barely disguised revenge punishment by the school’s long-suffering principle. He is saddled with the task of babysitting a handful of students during the Christmas period,...