With the release of Sideways twenty years ago, filmmaker Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti proved that a movie about a depressed wine nerd could become a critical and commercial success. That film also created the so-called Sideways Effect on global sales of Merlot, thanks to our hero's loud distaste for the red wine variety.
Giamatti and Payne have reunited for the first time since Sideways to make The Holdovers, a seasonal story set in an elite New England boarding school in 1970, where Paul Giamatti’s curmudgeonly Mr Hunham has the thankless task of babysitting the students with nowhere to go over the Christmas holidays. Eventually, his lone remaining charge is Angus Tully, a 17-year-old child of divorce whose newly married mother ditches him in favour of going on honeymoon.
Tully is played by extraordinary newcomer Dominic Sessa, who was a student at one of the schools the film was shot in when he was cast. Completing the dysfunctional central trio for the vacation period is Da’vine Joy Randolf as school cook Mary Lamb, who faces her first Christmas without her son Curtis who was killed in Vietnam.
The film was a critical success in the US on release late last year - and just last week it was a hit at the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice awards, with those in the know predicting that Paul Giamatti could give our own Cillian Murphy a run for his money when it comes to the Oscar for Best Actor.
Earlier today, Sean Rocks spoke to Golden Globe winners Da’vine Joy Randolf, Paul Giamatti and director Alexander Payne for RTÉ Arena - listen above.
Listen to more from RTÉ Arena here.
