'The Holdovers' accused of plagiarism
Photo courtesy of the Holdovers Miramax
It has been reported by Variety magazine that the Oscar nominated film ‘The Holdovers’, directed by Alexander Payne and starring Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Paul Giamatti, and Dominic Sessa, has been accused of plagiarism by Simon Stephenson, screenwriter of Pixar’s ‘Luca’, ‘Paddington 2’ and ‘The Electrical Life of Louis Wain’.
On January 12th, Stephenson contacted the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) claiming that the script had been plagiarised “line-by-line” from his own script ‘Frisco’. The screenplay, which was considered one of the best on 2013’s ‘Black List’, a yearly review of Hollywood’s unproduced scripts, details the life of a disillusioned paediatrician who falls into looking after a 15-year-old patient. At first glance, the premise does seem remarkably similar to ‘the Holdovers’ which discusses the life of Paul Hunham, a cynical teacher at a prep school, who unwillingly ends up looking after his student, Angus Tully, over the Christmas holidays.
In the article, Variety writes of Stephenson’s allegations in which he claims that director Alexander Payne saw the ‘Frisco’ script on two occasions, once in 2013 and a second time in 2019, before he approached David Hemingson to join forces and work on ‘the Holdovers’ script together. In the claim, Stephenson goes on to allege that “literally everything [was plagiarised] – story, characters, structure, scenes, dialogue, the whole thing.”
It may seem that Stephenson has a pretty clear-cut case. In documents released to Variety he certainly attempts to highlight the acts of plagiarism between the two screenplays and alludes to another document which details a further 50 instances of copying by Payne and Hemingson. Some commenters on Variety’s article, however, appear unconvinced, with one referring to Stephenson’s claims as a “joke” and another suggesting that any similarities are only “coincidental”.
It is of course a possibility that Payne’s and Hemingson’s films could merely share the same concept. After all, Payne himself admitted in an interview that he “stole” the premise of ‘The Holdovers’ from a French film released in 1935 that he saw at a film festival. Furthermore, one cannot help but see some similarities between ‘the Holdovers’ and the 1989 film ‘Dead Poets Society’. It is clearly not unusual for new films to build on or reimagine existing ones, although the fact that ‘Frisco’ was never made changes the dynamic slightly.
It is important to note that, at the time of writing, whilst Stephenson has made these accusations of plagiarism to the WGA, he has yet to file these complaints with any legal authorities. In addition, ‘the Holdovers’ director Alexander Payne and screenwriter David Hemingson have yet to comment on the matter. Only time will tell whether this argument will be battled in the courtrooms, or whether it will remain a mere cause for speculation. Nevertheless it raises interesting debates about inspiration and originality in art.
If you would like to read more on the documents detailing some of the instances of alleged plagiarism, access to the article can be found here: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/the-holdovers-accused-plagiarism-luca-writer-1235935605/