The absolute masterpiece Alexander Payne has been building towards his entire career.  Genuinely heartfelt, yet at the same time brimming with cynicism, this is a soulful sojourn into the lives of three characters, equally stewing in their own respective pots of pain, depression, and self-sabotage.
           Set at a private school in Massachusetts, Paul Giamatti plays a brilliant but disgruntled Ancient History teacher who has pretty much reached the end of his rope as far as meeting his own expectations in life, and is wiling away the hours until his retirement, while still trying to give these kids a quality education even though the course of their future careers has been greased with generational wealth.  The current schoolmaster is one of his former students — a particularly smarmy, high society-suckling scholastic sycophant, who gives Giamatti the unfortunate news that he must stay at the school for Christmas holiday break to supervise the kids who can’t go home to their families.
          Dominic Sessa plays a particularly smart student who also has a penchant for being a sardonic smart-ass, and a track record of getting kicked out of countless schools before this one (Sessa actually attended Deerfield Academy, one of the schools where the film was shot, which really seems to give his performance lived-in legitimacy).  This behavior can be traced back to his turbulent upbringing involving a father who is no longer around (for reasons explained later on) and a mother who has moved on from her husband and become emotionally distant from her son, leaving him to wither on the vine of abandonment.  Sessa is forced to stay at school during break when he finds out his mother and her new beau will be vacationing abroad.  
          Da’Vine Joy Randolph plays the school chef, whose son attended the academy before going into the military and dying in combat.  She is in the throes of recent grief, and courageously attempting to keep it all together during her time of fresh loss.  She is at the school during the holiday break to cook for those who stayed behind, and throughout the course of the film, she, Giamatti, and Sessa form a special bond as they collectively come together even as emotional arrows fly between the three of them.  
         David Hemingson wrote an incredible screenplay here, really mining the depth of the human experience, and Payne beautifully brings it to life with his trademark directorial touches.  The performances of the three leads are really what elevate this to classic status.  All three should receive nominations, and both Giamatti and Randolph deserve to win.  It’s also worth noting that this is Sessa’s first film role, and what a memorable debut it is.  
          Payne struck gold with this, and had a whole lot of help from his writer, cast, and crew to produce such an impactful piece.