Director Alexander Payne is hesitant to call The Holdovers a “cozy” film.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, the Oscar-winning director and writer discussed “cozy” — a term thrown around on social media, by critics and in marketing copy to describe films and TV shows — and why he wouldn’t necessarily consider his new film The Holdovers cozy.
The movie, set over Christmas break in 1970, follows a professor, a wealthy student and a cafeteria manager who all end up stuck at the boarding school they study and work at for the holidays. According to Payne, the thought of “putting on a sweater on a cold day and drinking hot cocoa” while watching this film “nauseates” him. He previously told IndieWire it’s partially inspired by the fact that a “very large percentage of suicides happen between Christmas and New Years.”
“I’m always a little surprised to hear this, ‘Oh, it’s like a cozy movie, or a warm hug, or putting on a sweater on a cold day and drinking hot cocoa,'” he told the outlet. “Part of that nauseates me a little bit. I thought I was just making a decent movie about people.”
“We can talk about two things. One is this quality that it has, perhaps, that we can pierce our natural assumptions about others, given new knowledge. That everybody’s got a story. You meet someone, you make certain assumptions fairly or unfairly, usually unfairly,” he continued, discussing why films like this that are character-driven and focus on relationships may feel cozy.
“But then the more you get to know the person, the more you see the humanity underneath,” he said. “And then by extension, in this film, if there’s a feeling that seemingly very disparate people can, with time, discover some common humanity — that’s a nice thing.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily use the word cozy though,” he added, noting that the “period flavor” may have contributed to the “cozy” moniker.
Payne added that the movie’s use of film instead of a digital camera and the ’70s throwback feeling also contribute to the “cozy” descriptor.
“That part I can relate to, from when I see some films from the early ’70s, perhaps because I was a little kid then and movies were really good then, and put a primary focus on human relationships and how messy life can be,” he said. “I certainly can feel a certain coziness when I watch a Bob Rafelson movie or a Hal Ashby movie from that period.”
Payne also added that he’s happy film distributors and theaters are willing to take a chance on mid-budget, character-driven movies again.
“My prayer that people are returning to the cinemas more and more to see movies and not just the big movies, but even the smaller, more human movies,” he continued. “My hat’s off to Focus [Features] who’s distributing this movie for making a commitment to cinemas for a movie like this, at least for the first month or two…. I couldn’t be happier.”
The Holdovers, which stars Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa, is in theaters now.