In 1970 New England, a curmudgeonly prep school teacher is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to oversee a group of students with nowhere to go. He forms an unexpected bond with an intelligent but troubled student, as well as with the school’s head cook, a woman who just lost a son in the Vietnam War. This sharply written and bittersweet comedy, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Alexander Payne (Sideways), features a standout, Oscar-nominated lead performance by Paul Giamatti.

This screening has been chosen by The Oxford University Filmmaking Foundation.

Reviews

‘Consistently hilarious, undercut with melancholy and flecked with profundity, it’s a major return to form for Payne…Hilarious and heartfelt, it’s a tale to be treasured.’
★★★★★
Nick de Semlyen, Empire Magazine

‘David Hemingson’s terrific (and endlessly quotable) screenplay is delicately rigged with such bittersweet tensions, which never insist upon themselves but just sit there, keeping the viewer’s sympathies on their toes.’
★★★★
Robbie Collin, The Telegraph