Actors Paul Giamatti and Joy Randolph Da'Vine have won Golden Globes for their performances in the film, and the film has received several Academy Award nominations, British Film Awards, BAFTAs, and many more. Perhaps the best way to sum it up is the enthusiastic review in the prestigious Empire magazine: "Hunham's hero Marcus Aurelius once wrote: Take time off to learn something good. Take his advice and see this film. "Professor Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is a man no normal student would want as a teacher. He's an elderly, lonely curmudgeon who knows the world of ancient literature better than he does today, and he deeply despises anyone who doesn't have a similar worldview. Young Angus (Dominic Sessa) is a student no normal professor would want in his class. A magnet for trouble, a rebel without a cause, a destroyer and disrupter of school rules. The two of them are left on a college campus over Christmas break. Rounding out the "holy" trio is the school cook, Mary, who is not in the mood for Christmas because she has just learned that her son was killed in the Vietnam War. From the start, the hope of these three lonely souls finding their way to each other is quite slim, but miracles do happen, and sometimes all it takes is a little goodwill to realise that people can actually be different from what they first appear to be...

Oscar-winning Alexander Payne (Sideways) has made an extraordinary film about the birth of an unexpected friendship. Three people who wouldn't normally last a minute next to each other must spend the entire Christmas holiday together. But sometimes it only takes getting to know each other better for something special to be born.