The Power of Love and Relationships

By Gabe Feinstein

How do our relationships shape who we are and give us our identity? When there is hate, can love bring out the best in us and prove to be the key to being prosperous and happy in society?

Released in 2023, The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne, explores themes and ideas that can be compared to the film Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Both films share similar themes including hate versus love, success versus failure, and the power of relationships. The idea of hate versus love in relationships is especially apparent between the two works, with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf focusing on George and Martha’s relationship and The Holdovers looks closely on Angus Tully and Paul Hunham.

 The Holdovers tells the story of Hunham, a curmudgeonly depressed history professor, who is forced to stay at the prep school which he teaches over Christmas break. He must stay in order to babysit the few students who have no place to go and must remain at school. One student forced to stay, Tully, a troubled student, strongly resents his mother’s decision to cancel their holiday plans and instead have to be supervised by Hunham. Over the course of the film, despite initial mutual unhappiness, the two develop an unexpected bond. Hunham and Tully, along with the school’s grieving head cook, Mary, get closer throughout the film. Through their troubled pasts, the characters find something in common with each other. At the beginning of the film, specifically between Hunham and Tulley, there is strong bitterness and resentment between the two. Neither one enjoys the company of the other and Tulley does whatever he can to stay as far away as possible from Hunham. However, by the end, the two rely on each other. In fact, towards the end of the film, Hunham accompanies Tulley on a trip to Boston so he can see his schizophrenic father in a mental hospital. After Tully experiences first hand his father’s sickness and deterioration, he panics, worrying he will become his father. However, Hunham is there for him by comforting Tulley and assuring him that he is his own person. This is just one example of how by the conclusion of the film, the two are there for each other in times of need rather than merely coexisting together through obligation.

Now, what was especially interesting for me in viewing this film was not only the highly emotional and sentimental plot but also some mirror characteristics to a film we watched this semester, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. One aspect of The Holdovers that was particularly striking in its comparable nature to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was the theme of hate versus love in relationships. Both films feature this theme with the former focusing on the relationship between Hunham and Tulley and the latter doing the same with George and Martha. In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, just like with Hunham and Tulley, George and Martha spend much of the film hating each other and resenting each other’s company. They constantly fight and bicker, leading to mutual misery. However, the ending of the film is notable after George reveals that their son is fake. Martha, though initially extremely upset and angry at George, shares a moment with him, conveying the love and need they have for one another. Finally, after witnessing through the entirety of the film the conflict between the two, we get redemption with their reconciliation as George puts his hand on Martha’s shoulder and she reciprocates by holding his hand. We’re led to believe the whole time how much hate they possess for one another. However, we see at the end that they really need each other. When Martha is clearly in significant distress, George is there, comforting her, just as Hunham does so for Tulley after visiting his dad in the hospital. Both films feature a hostile and tense relationship between two individuals that reveals itself as person-dependent that requires the love of one another in times of upheaval.

    

    Additionally, both films share other themes like success versus failure and the power of relationships. In each of the films, we learn about the characters’ pasts. In The Holdovers, we learn that Tulley is a troubled young man who lost his father to disease and has been kicked out of three boarding schools as a result of disobedience. Hunham, while a brilliant professor, has no family and has had difficulty finding a stable career. In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, we see similarities. George, expecting to become president of the academic college, has failed to reach this goal and likely will not in the future as Martha's father doesn't think he is right for the position. Martha also suffers from failure given that she is infertile and incapable of having children. The characters find harmony through their relationships, however, with Tulley and Hunham creating a friendship and George and Martha comforting one another and finding solidarity.