There is a scene in “The Holdovers’’ in which boarding school teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) asks Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a troubled student whom he is the guardian of over winter break, what the bottle of pills on his bed is for. Angus quickly brushes them off as being for his “low energy,” to which Paul bluntly responds, “You mean for depression?” Angus changes the subject and walks out of the room while Paul takes a few of the pills.

One may wonder what the tone of this exchange is. Giamatti’s deadpan expression might garner a quick laugh, but it also confirms that his character, while never stating it directly, shares in his student’s state of despair. This scene helps encapsulate the tone of the entire film – that of emotional honesty. Scenes that could play as unsentimental instead come alive with the help of the actors’ acute understanding of the relationship between their faces and the camera.

In one pivotal scene, the camera slowly moves in on Giamatti’s face, and just from his eye movements and the stillness of his lips, we understand how devastated he is in that moment. In another scene, Tully quietly and ashamedly pleads for his mother to not leave him stranded at school over the holidays. But once again, it is not the words that make this scene emotional but the lingering shot of Tully standing by the phone in deafening silence that follows them.

The holidays are a time when many feel intense seasonal depression or loneliness, which can be emphasized by the feeling that everyone else has someone to share their time with. “The Holdovers” acknowledges those forgotten at this time of year and subtly examines the idea that while the world is one of despair, compassion can still exist for those in it. Though the film never preaches this message, it is clearly one of the themes it builds upon.

Giamatti’s character rants about how terrible the world is, and even though the film takes place over 50 years ago, his words sound like something you might have read online about the present day. As he talks, the camera lingers on another character’s face, Lydia Crane (Carrie Preston). She responds to his outlook by suggesting that if that is the case, then this would be the time for him to do something about it. After all, what else can most of us do but care for the people in front of us right now?

The film takes place in 1970, but its aesthetics never seem too nostalgic in presentation. Instead, the film fits more into the decade by replicating the subjects of the films of those times – lost characters in a broken and confusing world.

Another one of the lost souls the film focuses on is Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the boarding school’s head cook, who has recently lost her son in the Vietnam War. With nowhere to go for the holidays, she also stays behind at the boarding school.The camera is as patient with her as it is with its two other leads. She is given the space to grieve in subtle, in-between moments before she expresses anything directly about the devastating matter. Mary’s son had attended the boarding school, and while many of its more privileged students are said to go on to the Ivy Leagues, his socioeconomic background and race led him straight to the war.

The film provides no real solution to the tragedy or a Hollywood white savior to step in and help. It is just the sad, uncomfortable truth of the time that her character must deal with this loss. 

These moments of uncomfortable truth and the responses of emotional honesty make the film work so well. We all long to see ourselves in fiction, and “The Holdovers” affirms our own humanity in its depiction of and empathy with universal sorrow.