The Holdovers – Life Lessons by Alexander Payne, with Paul Giamatti in the lead, was a fairly significant film, buoyed by five Oscar nominations, and it ultimately earned Da’Vine Joy Randolph an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. A shadow over this successful, sharp-witted comedy is cast by a lawsuit brought against the director by screenwriter Simon Stephenson, who accuses him of plagiarism of a screenplay he had submitted to him many years earlier. This kind of legal action is not unknown in Hollywood, but this case stands out because Stephenson didn’t appear from nowhere, as often happens in such situations… and he has been pursuing it for two years.
A Screenwriter Accuses Director Alexander Payne of Plagiarism Over The Holdovers
Already active on Pixar’s Luca, Paddington 2, and The Visionary World of Louis Wain, screenwriter Simon Stephenson contends that the script for The Holdovers – Life Lessons by Alexander Payne is a plagiarism of another work titled Frisco, which he had submitted to Payne twice, first in 2013 right after writing it, and again in 2019. Stephenson’s story, drawn from his experiences as a pediatrician, told of a disillusioned doctor forced to look after a teenage boy: the two become friends and embark on a journey to San Francisco, at the end of which the protagonist decides to leave his job and set off on a cross‑country trip. According to the suit, there are as many as 46 instances in which the two screenplays resemble each other too closely, to the point where Payne is accused of using Frisco’s script (which he had admired but reportedly did not want to direct or produce, per Stephenson) as a template for The Holdovers. It’s worth noting that Frisco’s screenplay had been placed on Hollywood’s Black List of the best unproduced screenplays, making it fairly well known and respected within the industry.
Stephenson had already attempted to assert his claim through the Writers Guild of America two years ago, around Oscar time, when Payne dismissed the accusation as “the dumbest thing in the world“. The union had advised him to consult lawyers, and that is precisely what he is doing now. The case involves not only Payne, but also screenwriter David Hemingson and the production companies behind The Holdovers.
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