Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti Reunite in First Trailer for ‘The Holdovers’

Focus Features has released the first trailer for The Holdovers, from two-time Academy Award-winning director Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) and starring Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti, reuniting for the first time since 2004’s Sideways.

The Holdovers follows a curmudgeonly instructor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with 15-year-old Angus – a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) – and with the school’s head cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who caters to sons of privilege and whose own son was recently lost in Vietnam.

Told in the style of a gritty, 1970s/80s era trailer (with a fictional old Focus Features logo), the film is written by David Hemingson and produced by Mark Johnson, Bill Block, and David Hemingson. It is executive produced by Andrew Golov, Thom Zadra, and Chris Stinson.

Focus Features will release The Holdovers in select New York and Los Angeles theaters on October 27, limited release on November 3 and wide on November 10. Here is the trailer.

Photo: Seacia Pavao/Focus Features