Alexander Payne's film The Holdovers arrived with the expectations I get from a filmmaker who is a favorite. I know what the tone will be and how it will be paced in a leisurely way but won't ever dawdle. It will be funny but not necessarily hilarious. It will be smart and sensitive and ask us to consider as a protagonist people not usually cast as stars of films. The characters at the center of his films are usually misanthropes - but not without justification. It speaks to the dead parts of us we might consider unreachable and pulls you along to some hard-earned destination of grace. because to believe that such a place doesn't exist for everyone would just be too much. His characters take small steps towards enlightenment and we're right there alongside them.