Alexander Payne's awards-baiting drama firmly places us right from the start back in the early 1970s (with its opening credits/classification screens) and Christmas (choir carol rehearsal), as disliked and aloof private school teacher Mr Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is tasked with supervising five holiday 'orphans' with recently bereaved cook Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), eventually reduced to a single embittered student Angus (Dominic Sessa), and we follow them as their pasts are unfurled and tentative bonds are made. The film has a very strong (and occasionally wryly amusing) script, buoyed up by a top-quality character performance from Giamatti, the consistently magnificent presence of Da'Vine Joy Randolph and a solid debut from Sessa. Shots are beautifully composed and the pacing is careful (with steady cross-fades aplenty), making it all come across as very genteel, restrained and well-meaning, and the 70s aesthetic (both filmic and mise-en-scene) is well presented. It is shot through with a chilly wintry feel and a bleak melancholy that undercuts the festive season, notably from the child abandoned by his parents and the grief of a mother, which make the occasional moments of warmth and connection extremely effective, all leading to an interesting ending for the characters.
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