Oscar speculation season is upon us once again with the usual likely stories of filmgoers rioting in the streets out of sheer outrage at the Academy's latest bit of eccentricity. Having said that, this year seems to have thrown into sharp focus the oddness of the way the different categories are set up, with ten nominees for Best Picture but only five for Best Director. Which brings us, not for the first time in my case, to the whole question of what the difference is between the two.

I mean, I can just about get my head around the possibility of a very mediocre script, badly acted throughout, being elevated to a much higher level by creative camerawork and other imaginative choices, and thus the film being worthy of a Best Director nod but not the top gong. But how often do you find yourself saying 'You know, the direction was a bit meh, but apart from that that was one of the best films I've seen this year'? And yet this is the fate that has befallen Greta Gerwig – Barbie apparently found its way onto screens and to a $1.4 billion take without Gerwig making much of a contribution.

Which leaves us with the other films up for the Picture statuette but not Director –   American Fiction (not out here yet), Past Lives (a genuinely great film that Celine Song surely deserves personal recognition for), Maestro (co-spousal unit wants to watch it so I expect we'll get to it fairly soon), and The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne. It turns out I am more familiar with Payne's back catalogue than I thought, as a brief check revealed I have seen a fair chunk of his more recent and celebrated film output: every film this century, in fact, apart from Sideways, which fell into the arthouse void and didn't get a release in Lancashire (where I was living at the time).

Despite being more of a critical darling than a financial hit, Sideways was still sufficiently influential that it had a negative effect on the sales of Merlot (though this sounds suspiciously apocryphal to me), and it will be interesting to see if The Holdovers will infiltrate the popular imagination in the same way. There are certainly some very good lines in the film, most of them delivered by Paul Giamatti (also of Sideways).

Giamatti, whose Jimmy Stewart impersonation I praised in the very first film review I ever wrote for the internet, is on top form in The Holdovers, the facile but not totally inaccurate quick description of which would be 'Dead Poets Society meets The Shining'. He plays Paul Hunham, an ancient civilisations teacher at a private school in New England. The year is 1970, and the film goes to extraordinary lengths to appear like a lost film from that period which has somehow been unearthed a half-century later – even the BBFC certificate is 1970s-vintage, while I'm sure I spotted a fake copyright credit suggesting the film is from 1972.

Hunham's spiky personality, dedication to academic rigour, and general contempt for his wealthy students mean he is a widely-hated figure at the school, even amongst his fellow teachers – his insistence on failing the son of a wealthy donor results in his getting the non-prized assignment of looking after the handful of pupils spending the Christmas break on the school campus. Nobody involved wants to be there, even though Hunham has no other plans for the season – he has no family and no particular friends to speak of.

One of the older holdover students is Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa, in his first screen role), a bright but obnoxious student marooned at the school so that his mother can enjoy her honeymoon with his stepfather. A long history of disciplinary issues means that Tully is one stunt away from being expelled and sent to military school, which can have its own ramifications in the era of Vietnam. Despite this he embarks on what seems to be a concerted attempt to tick Hunham off. Trying to keep things civil, to some extent, is Mary, head of the school's catering department, who is also spending the season alone – she is struggling following the death of her son in the South Asian conflict.

And what happens is that. . . not very much happens. There's a trip to the hospital after an overambitious bit of gymnastics, the trio get invited to a Christmas party, gradually they get to know one another, Tully finally manages to persuade Hunham to take him on a field trip. It's a resolutely low-octane, personal story.

Still, The Holdovers is the most satisfying and best film I can remember seeing in a long time – it's no great surprise it's up for best picture, and in an odd way I can understand why Payne hasn't received a directorial nomination. There is no sign of any overt directing going on here – no flashy camera moves or other visual quirks. He just settles for doing a brilliant job of letting the actors do their work and tell the story, which is about the human connection that is slowly forged and the consequences it has for all concerned.

Even so, you hardly ever catch anyone in this film acting – possibly the only extravagant element of any of the performances is that Hunham has a lazy eye, and how Giamatti was able to affect this remains a closely-guarded secret. With Giamatti there are layers upon layers of pathos, hurt, regret, pride, and tetchiness, and he slides between them within and between scenes utterly convincingly. All the money is on Cillian Murphy this year, but honestly, compared to Giamatti here, 95% of screen acting is basically people just playing dress-up.

The Holdovers has something of the texture and scope of a novel, and while I'm not sure it's one I can imagine watching on a regular basis, I'm sure that revisiting it occasionally in years to come will prove a very rewarding experience. One of the things it's about is youth and age, their inability to mutually understand one another most of the time, and the importance that they keep on trying. I recognised elements of myself, now and in the past, in the characters; I think most people will, to some extent, despite the fact the film makes no attempts to be allegorical or heavily symbolic. This is simply an excellent, very funny, very moving piece of film-making. If the Academy were foolish enough to give me a vote, The Holdovers is the film that would get it.

Also Showing. . .

. . . anyone looking for undemanding fun at the cinema currently could do worse than watch Taika Waititi's Next Goal Wins, a fictionalised version of the events covered by the documentary of the same name. Michael Fassbender takes another break from being a real-life racing driver to play Thomas Rongen, a football coach with anger management issues who finds himself packed off to the tiny island of American Samoa to get their team into shape ahead of looming World Cup qualifiers. The team is still coming to terms with being on the wrong end of a 31-0 scoreline against Australia, and have never scored a goal in their history, so Rongen has his work cut out.

So the lazy facile capsule description for this one is 'Local Hero meets Cool Runnings', as the team get a little bit better and Fassbender is educated about The Important Things in Life. It sticks pretty close to the story you'd expect it to be, with the exception of a very au courant for 2024 subplot about one of the team being transgender, but Waititi is too good a comedian for this to be anything less than amiable, consistently amusing and in places surprisingly sharp. It's all a bit slight considering Waititi's last few projects but it passes the time very pleasantly.

Awix

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