Summary
- Hunham sacrifices his career for Tully, going against his “Barton men don’t lie” mantra to protecting his student’s future.
- Hunham’s personal transformation is evident as he forms a bond with Tully and recognizes his potential, leading to his decision to lie for him.
- Mary Lamb’s story is essential in highlighting the stakes for Tully’s future, as Curtis Lamb was the only Barton boy to go to Vietnam, making it crucial for Hunham to protect him.
At the end of The Holdovers, Professor Paul Hunham lies to Dr. Woodrup and Angus Tully’s parents to stop him from being sent to a military academy. While Hunham and Tully initially had an adversarial relationship, they form a bond over their Christmas holiday together, changing both of them forever. The Holdovers is directed by Alexander Payne from a script by David Hemingson and features performances from Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Andrew Garman, and more.
Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) plans to spend his 1970 Christmas vacation on the beach at St. Kitts, but his mother and step-father decide to leave him at Barton boarding school for winter break so they can go on a belated honeymoon. Angus has already been suspended from multiple schools for behavioral issues, so being stuck with the widely disliked Professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) for Christmas break is a recipe for disaster. Despite the volatile situation, Hunham and Tully form an unlikely bond. In the end, when Angus is faced with the threat of suspension and being sent to a military academy, Hunham takes the fall, losing his own job to protect Tully.
Why Hunham Lied to Woodrip to Protect Tully
“Barton men don’t lie” unless it’s to sacrifice their careers for Angus Tully.
As a former Barton student, Hunham prizes the integrity of the institution, making him a notoriously strict teacher with famously harsh grading standards. He doesn’t even budge at the request of headmaster Dr. Hardy Woodrip (Andrew Garman), who wants the sons of some influential figures and school donors to get preferential treatment. Hunham repeatedly states “Barton men don’t lie,” yet he makes numerous exceptions to this rule for Angus, most notably at the end when he says it was his idea for Angus to visit Angus’ dad at the sanatorium, a lie that saves Angus from being sent to military academy (and potentially, eventually, Vietnam), but costs Hunham his job.
The Paul Hunham introduced at the start of The Holdovers would never budge on his personal ethic to that degree, much less for one of the students, so this is a huge transformation for him. It should be noted that, despite Angus’ discipline issues, he’s one of the few students who didn’t fail the test Hunham hands out at the start of the movie, but it’s not until their personal relationship evolves that Hunham truly shows favor to Angus. As they get to know each other more, particularly during the trip to Boston, Hunham sees himself in Tully and recognizes his potential.
Despite lying at the hospital to cover up Angus’ dislocated shoulder, celebrating Christmas together, and agreeing to travel to Boston, Hunham remains harsh towards Tully. The moment he truly begins to turn a corner is when he discovers Angus has a prescription for librium, the same medication Hunham takes for depression. He begins to see how the ways Tully is acting out are mostly symptoms of his difficult family situation. Since similar struggles got him kicked out of Harvard, and he was only saved by a benevolent mentor from Barton, Hunham knows just how valuable a helping hand could be to Tully, leading him to sacrifice his career for the boy’s future.
How Mary Lamb’s Story is Essential to Saving Angus
The Holdovers focuses on Angus Tully and Paul Hunham, but it’s actually about Curtis Lamb.
While the main plot of The Holdovers focuses on the relationship between Paul Hunham and Angus Tully, the presence of Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) is essential to establish the stakes at play for Angus’ future. Mary’s son, Curtis, was a former Barton student who didn’t come from privilege like all the other boys at the school because he was the son of a single black mother. Despite his good grades, they couldn’t afford college, meaning he couldn’t get a student deferment from the draft and was sent to Vietnam where he was killed in action, but Mary stayed at Barton because it was the last place her and Curtis were together.
“Barton boys don’t go to Vietnam.”
“Except for Curtis Lamb.”
After his encounter with an injured Vietnam veteran at the bar, Hunham tries to make him face his privilege, saying “Barton boys don’t go to Vietnam” to which Tully responds “except for Curtis Lamb.” At the end of The Holdovers, when Hunham goes to Dr. Woodrip’s office, Mary sits outside the door to hold Tully’s hand. As the son of the only Barton boy to go to Vietnam, she knows the stakes at play if Tully has to go to a military academy. Through his relationship with boy Mary and Angus, Hunham also knows the stakes are bigger than just his education, so he takes the blame for the situation with Angus’ dad.
Why Hunham Spit the Out the Cognac at the End
That was a very expensive mouthful of alcohol.
The first scene between Hunham and Woodrip in the headmaster’s office establishes the dichotomy between the two Barton men. Both are former students, yet Hunham is quite a bit older, and was once Woodrip’s teacher. Woodrip’s office is much nicer than Hunham’s, and he has a bottle of Louis XIII cognac on his desk, a gift from the school’s board of directors worth thousands of dollars in $2023. Woodrip urges Hunham to use gentler grading standards for the sons of some of Barton’s more influential men, which Hunham refuses to do a it would undermine the integrity of the institution, devaluing what it means to be a “Barton man.”
At the end of the movie, Hunham finally learned to budge on his harsh standards, but not for one of Barton’s political elite. Instead, Hunham lies to defend Angus Tully, one of the few boys at the school to actually recognize his privileged situation. Having lost his job, Hunham sits at a literal crossroads as he leaves the Barton campus as it’s revealed he stole the bottle of Cognac from Woodrip’s office. Before charting his course away from Barton for the first time in his adult life, he takes a swig of the cognac and spits it out, a final sign of disrespect to the institution that shaped his previously rigid ethic.
The Holdovers Ending and True Meaning Explained
Being a true “Barton man” means recognizing you were born lucky.
The main plot of The Holdovers focuses on the character arcs of Paul Hunham and Angus Tully, but it’s the backdrop of Curtis Lamb and his grieving mother, Mary, that gives the story its fully significance. In the first dinner scene, Hunham loses his temper at Teddy Kountze (Brady Hepner) for being “born lucky” and having no grasp of Mary’s situation. Both Hunham and Tully are troubled characters who face difficult situations, but like Kountze, they were also born lucky, although the difference is they may have a stronger appreciation for this fact.
Curtis Lamb didn’t have anyone to step in for him to give him an opportunity to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Through the friendship Angus and Paul form with each other, but also with Mary, Angus learns to not take his opportunity at Barton for granted, while Hunham learns he can use his privilege to give Angus another chance. The character arc of The Holdovers‘ two male leads remains intact without Mary’s friendship in the background context of Curtis, although their presence in the story is what separates Angus Tully and Paul Hunham from Teddy Kountze, Dr. Woodrip, and the other “born lucky” Barton men.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
