I’m sure it’s not solely that The Holdovers is set during the holiday season of 1970 that prompts director Alexander Payne to open his new movie with deliberate evocations of the U.S. cinema of that bygone era, beginning with an MPAA rating card with its distinctive light blue background enhanced with replicated film scratches and crackle. In practically every respect, this seriocomic tale of outcasts bonding when forced together by circumstance is a throwback to another era of screen storytelling, when the marketplace had room for films with mature ideas that flared with proudly complicated wit. That doesn’t mean The Holdovers is a pure nostalgia play. Rather, I think it’s a plea for a better future. It’s still possible to make movies like this, Payne insists.

The film is set primarily at Barton Academy, a New England boarding school that has been the long-term place of employment of imperious ancient history teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti). Partially because Paul recently rankled the headmaster (Andrew Garman) by issuing a deserved failing grade to a major donor’s offspring, he is roped into the much-loathed annual task of chaperoning the handful of students who don’t return to their families during winter break. This particular year, that small number includes Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa), whose planned Caribbean excursion is cancelled at the last minute, much to his chagrin. Angus is a good student, but he’s also prone to lashing out at peers and authority figures, which has prompted his forced ouster from several schools. He and Paul are ready-made for battle with each other.

Payne’s storytelling is shrewd and elegant in The Holdovers. Working from a screenplay credited to David Hemingson, Payne takes the film through fairly familiar narrative beats and manages to make all the details feel fresh. He leans on the deeper insights in the script and give the characters room to live on the screen. The performances surely help. Giamatti is in his element, giving Paul’s most abrasive qualities a sly comic verve while also making it clear that strong reserves of empathy reside within him. Sessa is a fine foil, playing the mercurial mood changes of a emotionally wounded teenager while maintaining a consistency of his being. Matching and sometimes bettering those two is Da’Vine Joy Randolph, the school’s head cook who is carrying a heavy burden of grief because her son was recently killed in action in Vietnam.

The Holdovers is consistently funny and disarmingly warm in spirit. Even as it generates real emotion, it never abandons its cynicism, which might be the aspect of the film that places it most squarely within the spirit of nineteen-seventies rebel artistry. It’s the kind of movie Hal Ashby might have made once upon a time. Instead, it’s the kind of movie Payne is still committed to making in the here and now. For that, I’m thankful.