Where was Paul Giamatti's The Holdovers shot? Filming locations explored

The Holdovers is one of the best comedy films released last year. The heartfelt comedy starring the veteran actor Paul Giamatti fared very well upon its release in November 2023. The film received five Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.

Written by David Hemingson and directed by Alexander Payne (known for The Descendants and Downsizing) the official synopsis of the film reads:

"A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school remains on campus during Christmas break to babysit a handful of students with nowhere to go. He soon forms an unlikely bond with a brainy but damaged troublemaker, and with the school's head cook, a woman who just lost a son in the Vietnam War."

The Holdovers features stunning photography and takes viewers back to the 1970s, the period in which the plot is set. The plot follows the characters in a boarding school in New England. This article explores the scenic locations where the filming of The Holdovers has taken place.

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The Holdovers is shot entirely across locations in Massachusetts, U.S.A.

The boarding school in the film is called the Barton Academy. The opening shots of the film which showed the Barton Academy were filmed in Shelburne Falls located in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. With its collection of well-preserved 19th-century buildings, galleries, and artisan stores, this quaint town epitomizes New England's charm.

Another location in Massachusetts where a majority of the filming took place is the suburban town of Groton. Located close to major cities like Boston, Groton has extensive hiking trails and a slow river making for the picturesque shots in the film. The Groton School Boathouse, the Groton School Chapel, and Northfield Mount Hermon School were the main locations where a lot of filming depicting the fictional Barton Academy was shot.

Important scenes from The Holdovers were also filmed in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Many scenes inside the classrooms were filmed at the Fairhaven High School. The Southborough suburb of Massachusetts has a breathtaking rural scenery that has been utilized heavily for filming sequences. The Holdovers combined shots of numerous schools across Massachusetts and the St. Marks School in Southborough was one of the more historic locations, being established back in 1865.

In an interview with Town&Country, production designer Ryan Warren Smith had the following to say about filming across five different schools across the State:

“We wished we could find a school that had everything we would need for the time period, but that was just going to be impossible. So, we found the pieces that we thought would work together and that we thought would look believable to the audience.”

The director Alexander Payne spent a considerable amount of time in finalizing the locations for filming across Massachusetts. He said:

"I'm happy to report that everything in the movie is a location. There isn't a single set in the whole movie. That doesn’t happen often, even when you do even a location-based movie—you’ve got to build a bathroom or a closet or something because their real-life ones are too dinky to get the equipment and actors into."

The Holdovers is a film that has recreated the era that it wants to depict beautifully and the choice of locations has added a great deal to the visual appeal along with the authenticity of the era.

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The Holdovers is currently available for streaming on Peacock.