Alexander Payne offers Paul Giamatti a role that could well earn him an Oscar nomination.
Since 2002’s About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson, Alexander Payne has always known how to touch the most unpleasant man. In Those Who Remain, the filmmaker plunges into the 1970s – his youth – and takes us to a boarding school in New England.
Photo credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
The boarding school is called Barton and is for boys only. On the eve of Christmas break, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti, who could well receive an Oscar nomination), the institution’s most unpleasant teacher, is responsible for watching over the small group of students who will not be spending the holiday with family. This includes Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), whose parents are unavailable because his mother has decided to travel to the Caribbean with her new husband.
As with all of Alexander Payne’s feature films – we will remember “The Descendants” with George Clooney or the great “Nebraska” with Bruce Dern – the script gives the impression of being his own, as it is a mixture of nostalgic memories and old, poorly healed wounds. Here David Hemingson is the author of this sensitive story in which unlikely characters, including the school cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), end up becoming friends.
Those Who Remain will touch you first with its sincerity, then with that mix of humor, severity and immense tenderness that is so characteristic of Alexander Payne’s films. The adventures that the three protagonists will experience warm like a fire and we reach out our hands, eager to receive the warmth.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5