‘The Excluded’, the Review I A Christmas Carol

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‘The Excluded’, Alexander Payne’s latest film, with the notable Paul Giamatti, is a nostalgic and at the same time fun winter story about human relationships. The film could have been an unexpected Christmas gift for viewers, but unfortunately it will only be released on February 15th. There is talk of Giamatti for an Oscar nomination.

‘The excluded ones’ is a film about loneliness, the alienation of the Vietnam War era in the 70s, with a grumpy teacher played by Paul Giamatti and a kid who doesn’t adapt to boarding school, who can’t go home and spend Christmas with his family. Therefore, it does not exactly address the most recurrent themes of classic Christmas films, which tend to warm up our Christmas Eve and festivities at least until the Kings. However, a fabulous scene ‘The excluded ones’the last film of Alexander Payne (‘Downsizing‘), sums up the spirit of this film and this tender, touching, nostalgic and fun story, which should really have been released in national theaters around Christmas. On Christmas morning, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a grumpy classical music teacher at a boarding school in New England, USA, in the early 1970s, enlists rebellious student Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and the grieving school canteen lady Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), to gather in the school cafeteria, for a hastily prepared celebration. Glowing with joy and satisfaction, Hunham discovers a crooked and unadorned Christmas tree, full of poorly wrapped presents, at his feet. It’s a somewhat pathetic scene, reminiscent of the classic and nostalgic short film ‘Charlie Brown’s Christmas’ (1965). However, what counts is Hunham’s effort to transform a sad situation into a pleasant and relaxed moment of Christmas celebration. That’s precisely what he’s about ‘The excluded ones’the story of three human beings, marked by sadness and loneliness, who make the most of the Christmas holiday season, despite the circumstances for them not being the most ideal.

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Starring Paul Giamatti— it is more than likely that he will be nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor — who returns to collaborate with Payne after ‘Sideways‘, (2004), ‘The Excluded’ is a portrait of a time, which could be perfectly extrapolated to the present day: the Christmas holidays of 1970, at a boarding school for rich teenagers, in New England, cold and covered in snow, where Hunham (Giamatti), is an internal and somewhat despised teacher, who receives the unenviable task of keeping an eye on a handful of unhappy students, who are forced to spend the Christmas holidays on campus, from the school principal. Hunham’s stubborn attitude and his dissatisfaction with the behavior of the ‘kids’ create almost a battle of wills between the professor and those under his command, especially Tully (Dominic Sessa), a challenging but highly intelligent boy.

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘THE EXCLUDED’

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However, what happens is much more than the classic story of a stubborn adult and on the other side, a rebellious young man. And here’s another novelty in relation to traditional Christmas films, almost always set in a wonderland, almost always with the picturesqueness of a snowy winter, full of lights and snowmen: without these pastichesHunham and Tully build little by little an unlikely, complex friendship, but above all based on mutual understanding and something else, as we will watch.

‘The excluded ones’ It has many strong points, but one of them is undoubtedly the remarkable performances of the two protagonists. Giamatti’s portrayal of Hunham shows almost like a slow melting of a ‘snowman’, a stubborn and cold teacher, who hates his students as much as he cares about their success and frustrations, softens until he becomes a character with whom we gain deep empathy. Giamatti’s ability to translate into the same scene and into his character as Hunham, an icy behavior and at the same time an enveloping warmth, is absolutely memorable, adding humanity to the film’s story.

Dominic Sessa, a young actor who makes his film debut, in the angry Angus Tully, portrays his character as a teenager unable to deal with his family’s abandonment. Sessa manages skillfully and in a very expressive way in his interpretation, to balance the line between disobedience and reasonableness. This is an impressive debut from a young actor who we will certainly see in many films to come.

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In addition to the two main protagonists of the film, we also have Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who shines as Lamb, the school cafeteria manager, who is mourning the loss of her son in the Vietnam War. Randolph provides the emotional core of the film, acting as a moral and emotional compass, while also navigating his loneliness and sorrows left by his son’s death. Desperate to find some meaning in the Christmas season, the three unlikely companions form almost an informal but loving family, as they hope that Christmas will pass as quickly as possible, before the start of the next semester. ‘The excluded ones’ It also manages to be a film that is as funny as it is moving and sincere. The script, written by the producer David Hemingson, is full of hilarious moments and at the same time full of emotion and feelings. Even when dark themes are addressed, such as loneliness, depression, dysfunctional families, like Tully’s. The script addresses all these issues with appropriate humor, allowing the film to breathe and not be marked by its melancholy and sadness. In fact, it wouldn’t be a Christmas movie if joy wasn’t always present in the story. Furthermore, for a film that is almost 2 hours and 15 minutes long, there are several twists and emotional developments, which manage to maintain viewers’ interest until the curious ending.

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Payne also makes very good use of its period setting: the early 1970s. The film features fashion models and automobiles from the time, along with some excerpts from episodes of the then-famous ‘The Newlywed Game’: an American television competition that pitted newlywed couples against each other in a series of revealing rounds of questions, to determine how well the spouses knew each other or not. It is important to highlight that Payne also made the wise decision to digitally add a grainy 16mm tone to the final print of the film, giving it the feeling of actually watching a film from the 70s. This atmosphere of the decade, combined with the romanticism of a New England and the city of Boston, cold and covered in snow, is strong enough to awaken feelings of nostalgia, even for those who did not live in that nostalgic time of many changes in the world. ‘The excluded ones’is also quite far from ‘Downsizing’ (2017), the previous film by Alexander Payne with Matt Damon, a satire on environmental solutions, or the adaptation of capitalism, in response to climate change. Although ‘The Excluded’ addresses very controversial issues from the 70s (race, class and the Vietnam War), the script does not have an activist or fighting tone. Payne focuses primarily on the importance of human relationships, rather than his usual social satires on American society. Although it is as biting and bitter a film as Payne’s previous films, this one has a certain warmth and deep tenderness, new elements to his already relatively extensive filmography.