IN THE DARK REVIEWS

Youngest stars shine bright in 'Holdovers,' 'Marvels'

Kirk Boxleitner | Nov 16, 20230

Courtesy photo count

Two very different films showcased the standout acting talents of their young supporting performers in theaters this past weekend.

Dominic Sessa made his film acting debut in "The Holdovers," by two-time Academy Award-winning director Alexander Payne, and Sessa holds his own in spite of sharing the screen with seasoned performers Paul Giamatti and Da'Vine Joy Randolph.

This unlikely trio forms the backbone of a Christmas character study, set in a fictional Massachusetts boarding school in 1970.

Payne's fidelity to the era descends to recreating the picayune stylistic touches of a motion picture that would have been shot and released during that year, but I was struck by how quickly those details passed from my attention, in favor of taking in the interactions of our three primary "holdovers" from the student body, school staff and faculty who are left behind on the campus over the holidays.

Giamatti, who worked with Payne on the director's Oscar-winning "Sideways" in 2004, finds a sympathetic wavelength with Randolph. While their characters - the sarcastically curmudgeonly classics teacher and the cafeteria administrator who quietly carries on after losing her son to the Vietnam War - might seem more marked by their contrasts, they've both seen their dreams denied, through no fault of their own, and have resigned themselves to lives that are "good enough."

What makes Sessa spark off both of those experienced players is not just what his character draws out of theirs, but also how instinctively he inspires and responds to them as fellow actors.

Sessa's character is the only student in Giamatti's class who we see breaking out of the teacher's C-to-F grading range. He got a B+ on his midterm exam, but he's also been kicked out of enough boarding schools that if gets kicked out one more time, he's headed for a military academy.

The plot is unsurprising, as the cynical old man comes to recognize what's special inside this troubled young kid, who in turn comes to realize his stodgy instructor has life lessons to offer him. The backstory revelations matter far less than the emotions that Sessa and Giamatti portray, in unfolding layers of mutual frustration, grudging respect and affection.

Just as Giamatti, as the mentor figure, sees a bit of his younger self in Sessa, so too does Randolph as the grieving mother. She responds to Sessa as an emotional orphan of an affluent family that would just forget him.

Given Sessa and Giamatti's shared knack for sardonic dialogue, Randolph also keeps the philosophical pair from disappearing up themselves.

"The Holdovers" is an affecting, contemplative and crystalline moment of a movie that stays with you after you've left the theater.

In genre and tone, the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "The Marvels" could not be more removed from "The Holdovers," but like Dominic Sessa, Iman Vellani is its newest recruit to acting and its most promising talent.

As an unintended consequence of the MCU's latest generic galactic-level villain, veteran superhero Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), finds her powers entangled with those of not only her estranged adoptive niece, Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), who was previously Captain Marvel in Marvel Comics, but also Vellani's Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel.

Zawe Ashton - the real-life romantic partner of fellow MCU actor Tom Hiddleston - is wasted as this film's Big Bad, who wants revenge on Carol for inadvertently causing a civil war that devastated her people's home world. The interactions among our three "Marvels" is entertaining, endearing and well worth watching.

For starters, while many male Marvel fans have criticized Carol Danvers as an all-too-stoic "Mary Sue" (a derisive fandom nickname for a character who's written without sufficient or realistic flaws), "The Marvels" gives Larson the opportunity to show how Carol's tendency to cut herself off from others has left her socially stunted.

While Carol Danvers doesn't age, due to her powers, the now-adult Monica Rambeau remembers looking up to her "aunt" Carol when she was a little girl, which is why Monica calls out Carol for not returning from the stars, leaving Monica alone after her mother died of cancer.

The most valuable player of "The Marvels" is Vellani as Kamala, a teenage superhero fangirl who basks in being a superhero and who exults in finally meeting her favorite hero - Carol as Captain Marvel.

Although the relatively inexperienced Kamala is understandably overwhelmed at first, she remains a quick-thinking combatant who's driven by compassion and moral responsibility.

The interlinking of the Marvels' powers, which causes them to switch places

physically whenever they activate their powers at the same time, is a remarkably effective vehicle for some of the most dynamic and inventive close-quarters combat scenes I've seen yet in the MCU.

In the spirit of nerd media ranging from 2001's "Once More, with Feeling" episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," to this year's "Subspace Rhapsody" episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," the MCU can boast its own in-canon musical sequence (beyond "Rogers: The Musical" in "Hawkeye"), as "The Marvels" encounter an alien race that communicates through song, and Kamala grooves enthusiastically to the Bollywood-style beat.

Yes, anyone who's read my reviews of "Ms. Marvel" on Disney+ has seen me say this, but Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan is an absolute superstar combination of actor and character, like Chris Evans as Captain America crossed with Tom Holland as Spider-Man.

The ending of "The Marvels" teases Kamala's future role among the younger heroes we've seen crop up in the MCU, and its midcredits scene should delight anyone who's old enough to have grown up with a certain Fox Kids cartoon during the 1990s.