The last time writer/director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti worked together, in 2004’s Sideways, the result was five Oscar nominations — including Best Picture — and a win for the film’s captivating script.
That won’t happen this time.
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| Angus (Dominic Sessa, left) and Professor Hunham (Paul Giamatti) are surprised to discover that the school head cook, Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) has prepared a full-blown Christmas dinner. |
Indeed, the film even feels like a product of the early 1970s, in terms of tone and appearance.
The weak link is David Hemingson’s script.
Payne usually writes or co-writes his films, with memorable results that have included — in addition to Sideways — 2002’s About Schmidt and 2011’s The Descendants.
He should have done so this time.
The premise here, lifted mostly intact from Merlusse, is fine; the execution (alas!) is contrived, clumsy, lethargic and ultimately dull. The result does not deserve its protracted 133-minute length.
The setting is Barton Academy, a venerable boarding prep school that reeks of wealth and boorish entitlement. Giamatti stars as Paul Hunham, a veteran adjunct professor of ancient history. To call him misanthropic is the worst of understatements; Hunham regards his students with undisguised contempt. He isn’t merely stern; he’s downright nasty, routinely belittling his charges as philistines, reprobates, snarling Visigoths and (my favorite) “fetid layabouts” unfit to uphold Barton’s longstanding dedication to tradition and academic rigor.
That such descriptions are entirely accurate, with respect to many of the privileged little snots, is entirely beside the point. Hunham’s unceasing torrent of verbal abuse — delivered by Giamatti, it must be admitted, with considerable flourish — is an immediately insurmountable barrier that makes it impossible to sympathize with the man, as the story proceeds.
More to the point, although Hunham knows his field inside and out — and loves to hold forth with needlessly highbrow language — he apparently can’t communicate it. If everybody save one member of his class receives a grade of D or F on the semester final exam, then clearly Hunham is a terrible teacher. Bearing that in mind — as an adjunct professor lacking tenure, who can be fired at will — enraged wealthy parents would have demanded his departure long ago.
And they’d certainly have gained the support of Barton’s snootily officious headmaster (Andrew Garman, appropriately smarmy), who loathes Hunham.
Building the subsequent story on this false premise therefore doesn’t work, no matter how hard everybody tries.
That’s a shame, because Giamatti plays this curmudgeon with enthusiasm. There’s more to Hunham, of course; he’s lonely and clinically depressed, with a lot working against him. He long ago abandoned any pretense of physical attractiveness, and therefore garbs himself in a manner as musty as Barton’s hallways. His beard is overgrown; he has a glass eye; and he suffers from an enzyme deficiency known as trimethylaminuria, which produces a rank, fishy smell in his breath and sweat.
He attempts to conceal the latter with his ubiquitous pipe and the application of far too much whiskey. Which also doesn’t help.
The story proper gets underway in the aftermath of that horrific final exam, when Barton’s students are released to spend the two-week Christmas break with their families. Five boys are left behind, for various reasons: the smart but insufferable Angus (Sessa); Teddy (Brady Hepner), a thoroughly contemptible bully; Jason (Michael Provost), a rich jock; and the younger Ye-Joon Park (Jim Kaplan), whose family is in Korea; and cheerful Alex (Ian Dolley), whose parents are on a religious mission.
As punishment for the previous sin of failing a high-profile student whose father recently endowed the school’s gym, Hunham is assigned to babysit these “holdovers,” a task he dislikes just as much as the students left in his charge. We barely get to know four of the boys, before circumstances grant them an unexpected release, leaving Angus the lone remainder.
Hunham and Angus have one more companion, during this fortnight’s “imprisonment”: head cook Mary Lamb (Randolph), whose only child Curtis, a recent Barton graduate, was killed in Vietnam. She’s consumed by grief; Angus is burdened by despair, having been “abandoned” by his mother and her new husband, vacationing on their own.
This gives us three damaged individuals: one who tragically lost her family, one coldly rejected by his family, and one who never has been able to assemble a family. As is the nature of such stories, their shared bonds of misery and unhappiness somehow will turn them into their own unlikely family unit.
Despite Hunham’s initial insistence that he and Angus must remain on school grounds — the professor being such a tight-assed stickler for rules — their isolated world eventually expands to include a holiday party hosted by school administrator Lydia Crane (Carrie Preston, a welcome burst of warmth and kindness), and several subsequent days in Boston; Mary tags along to both. (Hunham ultimately rationalizes this by calling them “field trips.”)
Hunham slowly thaws, flashes of humanity emerging despite himself, as he learns more about Angus; the boy similarly begins to view his older companion with bursts of sympathy and respect. Both Giamatti and Sessa are excellent, delivering richly nuanced performances that uncover welcome depth, like the layers of an onion being peeled away.
At times, Giamatti’s gaze exposes the many devils that have long plagued Hunham, along with — ultimately — the “big reveal” that explains (but does not justify) his instinctive antipathy toward Barton students. Hunham occasionally becomes playful, even excited, as when he and Angus visit the antiquities exhibit in a Boston museum. It’s possible to see, at such moments, the far superior teacher Hunham could be (an observation that does not escape Angus).
Mostly, though, Giamatti’s resigned and exhausted bearing — down to the subtlest movements — reflect a man who has given up on the human race, and on himself.
Angus is a tougher read. Sessa initially keeps the boy’s true feelings concealed behind spite, arrogance, self-destructive acts of defiance, and a tendency to see the worst in everybody. He’s not deliberately mean, like Teddy, but nonetheless is impossible to like. Sessa’s expressions speak volumes; we sense that Angus knows that he’s his worst enemy, but can’t figure out how to get out of his own way.
As with Hunham, Angus has good reason for his (mostly) self-inflicted misery.
Randolph, however, outshines both Giamatti and Sessa; her sublime performance is far better than this film deserves. Mary has chosen to remain at Barton because it was the last place she shared with her son. This performance is heartbreaking; Mary wears grief and loss like a shroud. Randolph’s strongest moment comes during Lydia’s party, when too much alcohol finally crumbles what little remains of Mary’s ability to hold it together. The scene is shattering.
On the other hand, during her calmer moments, the sharply perceptive Mary doesn’t hesitate to criticize Hunham’s behavior. And, because they are friends, she’s the one person he listens to.
Naheem Garcia makes the most of his too-brief scenes as a Barton custodian, which technically makes this group a quartet. Hemingson definitely should have expanded his role.
This film’s memorable moments notwithstanding, the narrative takes far too long to reach its inevitable destination, and occasional hanging chads are irritating. What’s the point of torturing Angus with the cute girl he briefly meets at Lydia’s party?
When the story finally does conclude, the outcome is jarring and excessively mean-spirited.
It’s hard to feel satisfied when the end credits roll.
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