Film / Hollidaysburg

Hollidaysburg is a 2014 coming-of-age indie film, and the debut of writer/director Anna Martemucci (now known professionally as A.M. Lukas).

In Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania (a central PA suburb of Altoona), a group of high school friends reunite during a Thanksgiving break from their college classes. Former prom king and college freshman Scott is dumped in the middle of sex by his girlfriend Heather, who seems to be having a mental health crisis, and strikes up an unlikely friendship with Tori, a former wallflower emerging from the shadow of her high school best friend Katie. As the two warm up to each other and embark on some wacky antics, their relationship starts to turn into something deeper.

The process of this movie being made was documented on the Set Behind the Scenes Reality Show The Chair (2014) on Starz, which documented Martemucci and Shane Dawson as they both set to make different films from the same script (Dawson's being Not Cool). Of the two, while Not Cool ended up winning the series, Hollidaysburg was significantly better-received by critics.

---

This movie provides examples of:

• Adapted Out: Scott's parents, who are relatively major characters in the original screenplay, don't appear at all in this movie, with Martemucci making the major change to the plot that rather than being about to move to Florida they already have moved to Florida, Scott's mother appearing only in the form of a voice on the phone. This script also completely removes the Ethnic Scrappy character of Fong (who became Shareef in Not Cool), the party host, and replaces Janie and Joel with the Composite Character Katie.
• Adaptational Heroism: The original script had a somewhat cliché scenario with Heather inspiring her new Love Interest from the Wrong Side of the Tracks, William, to make something better of himself by leveraging his skill as a cook. Hollidaysburg inverts this, with Petroff already working as a cook, and being the one to tell Heather that upward mobility in the no-college-degree minimum-wage world isn't what it's cracked up to be, in order to discourage her from her plan to drop out of school.
• Adaptational Sexuality: This movie changes Tori's older sister Marissa and her fiancé Gil from the original screenplay into a lesbian couple, Angela and Courtney, and makes them much more sympathetic characters along the way. This was possibly to avoid keeping The Reveal that Janie/Katie is a lesbian from the screenplay while also making her a much more unlikable character and showing the reveal in a much more negative context.
• The Alcoholic: Phil is a great deal more embarrassed about being a wino than The Stoner (including keeping a box of wine in his car). One of the ominous signs of Scott following in his footsteps is him binge-drinking at Katie's party to take his mind off of his life situation.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Toned down a lot from the original screenplay (to say nothing of Shane Dawson's interpretation of it in Not Cool), but Tori's parents in this film are just as mortifying in their overbearingly WASPy repressed way.
• Ambiguous Ending: The movie deliberately does this, ending without a clear resolution on any of the romantic arcs we've seen (realistically enough, since the movie took place over the course of only a few days) with Tori giving us a narration about how people change every day and the future is unpredictable. In particular, even though Scott and Tori have had sex, all the obstacles to their relationship Tori named are still present and it's unclear if they're going to maintain a long-distance romance or leave their hookup in the past. Heather also goes back to school at Penn State — because her dad essentially forced her to — with no clear answer on whether she's going to go through with her plans to drop out in the end, and if her Odd Friendship with Petroff will blossom into anything more.
• Amusing Injuries: A low-key Running Gag but one that is Played for Laughs — Scott steadily accumulates bruises and cuts on his face as he gets beat up over the weekend, first from being hit by Tori's car, then from being attacked by Trish with a baseball bat, then in his final fight with Petroff at the party. Lampshaded when Petroff tries to apologize for hitting him and Scott waves it off as being a drop in the bucket.
• Artistic License – Geography: Even though this movie says several times that Tori has come home to the Altoona area from Pittsburgh (which is about 100 miles away), the movie was filmed in Pittsburgh and the local landmarks Scott takes Tori to are all well-known Pittsburgh locations. Tori similarly pulls a bit of a stretch in her final narration — John Updike's hometown of Reading is "not far from Hollidaysburg" compared to the rest of the country, maybe, but it's almost 200 miles away and considered southeastern PA rather than central PA.
• Asian and Nerdy: Played with. Heather, who is half-Asian, is far from a nerd — she was the most popular girl in school — but she was known as the high-achieving smart girl that whole time, and everyone is taken aback by the depth of her transformation due to depression.
• Author Appeal: One reason Martemucci was drawn to The Chair was that she herself grew up in State College, PA and attended Penn State, and wanted to do a love letter to central Pennsylvania (just as executive producer Zachary Quinto grew up in Green Tree and went to school at CMU).
• Author Avatar: For fans of The Chair, it's hard not to see this version of Tori (who is very, very different from the character in Dan Schoffer's original screenplay How Soon Is Now) as one for creator Anna Martemucci — sensitive, dorky, and struggling with standing up for herself and her own desires against both her enemies and the people she loves and relies on.
• Basement-Dweller: Petroff's living situation. Scott, in his desperation not to give up his old life and old social circle despite his parents moving to Florida, proposes that moving in with Petroff might not be so bad; Petroff gently shuts him down.
• Big Brother Mentor: Phil is this for Scott, with Tori telling us that Scott was a Big Man on Campus mainly because he's followed in Phil's footsteps. A bit of a deconstructed trope, since Phil has grown up into The Stoner and a NEET and Scott is aware of this.
• Big Man on Campus: Scott is a former one of these, with a dash of also being the Jerk Jock. He had a full-on psychological breakdown at UCLA from constantly feeling Alone in a Crowd because "nobody returns my high-fives".
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: The Seinfeldian Conversation among the single guys Phil and Scott invited to have Thanksgiving dinner at a diner turns to Bobby Lancaster, the "worst-behaved, most horniest kid I ever met", speculating that he either ended up in jail or "on a Reality Show". This film, of course, was created as the result of a reality show, although a different genre of reality show than the one they're talking about.
• Cerebus Syndrome: This film is the result of Anna Martemucci taking Dan Schoffer's idea for a light, fluffy teen comedy and making it a good deal grittier and more serious.
• Class Clown: Scott, which is very much the basis of his Big Man on Campus popularity and his most endearing trait. Heather making him go through his repertoire of impressions as their last farewell to each other is both funny and sad. It's a trait he inherited from his brother Phil, who bonds with him over comparing their ridiculous senior class pictures and their competition over who could Troll the photographer harder by including increasingly absurd accessories.
• Colorblind Casting: Claire Chapelli, who plays Heather, is Latina (of Cuban descent), despite the fact that Heather's mom is Asian.
• Coming of Age Story: The point of this film is Tori, Scott and Heather all realizing how much they've changed — for better and for worse — since leaving their hometown to go to college.
• Composite Character: The original screenplay's "Gamma Couple", Janie and Joel, was cut out from this film completely, with their role in the story of the other two couples (with Janie as Heather's best friend and Joel as Tori's) replaced in Broad Strokes by the character of Tori's best friend Katie. The primary thing that carries over is the surprise reveal that Katie is a lesbian.
• Contrast Montage: Black Friday, where we see Scott and Tori's "field trip" where Scott shows her around the scenic spots of her own hometown interspersed with Petroff making Heather help him out at work at the pizzeria so she can get an idea of what life after dropping out of college might be like. Doubles as a Falling-in-Love Montage for them both.
• Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: Scott and Petroff, although it seems like Petroff didn't clearly become the "loser" in their friendship until after he ended up not going to college due to his family financial issues.
• Creator Cameo: Writer/director Anna Martemucci shows up as Tori's future sister-in-law Courtney. (As a bit of a Creator In-Joke, Courtney has a vocal chord injury and doesn't talk much.)
• Deadpan Snarker: Heather, who gets in plenty of Black Comedy jabs at herself and her own depressive state.
  Heather: I totally pushed a kid off the swings once to get an erection.
  Petroff: ...There's so much I don't understand about that joke.

  Petroff: Hey, what are you gonna do for the rest of break?
  Heather: Probably eat a kielbasa and google school shootings.
• Decomposite Character: Phil and Petroff come off as this for the character of William from the original screenplay, with both of them being The Stoner but Phil being the one who has a more positive, Big Brother Mentor relationship with Scott (so that Scott can have a more realistically hostile relationship with Petroff after Petroff ambiguously becomes Heather's new Love Interest). One of the realistic edits Martemucci made from Schoffer's screenplay is Schoffer having Scott and William play basketball with each other while they have a conversation hashing out their issues with each other, whereas the finished film prominently features Scott standing up Petroff for their basketball date and this conversation never really happening.
• Descent into Addiction: It's mostly tongue-in-cheek, but Petroff expresses worry that by selling Heather weed he's enabling this trope for the former high-achieving princess.
• Education Mama: Subverted. Heather's Asian mom is the one who just shrugs off the idea that she's dropping out of school, saying that she should take it up with her (white) father, who becomes incensed at the idea.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Heather wears her hair up in a messy bun with a headband for most of the movie, which is a clear contrast with the few glimpses we get of her in photos of her glory days in high school when her hair was long, flowing and well-conditioned. Her showing up at the party on Friday with her hair down and in a simple braid is meant to be a sign she's starting to feel better, and possibly that she's washed it for the first time in a while.
• Extreme Doormat: Tori, who's apparently used to first her parents then her best friend Katie treating her like a possession and scheduling her entire life for her.
• Fiery Redhead: Katie, who's a highly negative example of this trope. She's not actively malicious enough to be an Evil Redhead, but she certainly fits the stereotype of having a hot temper and It's All About Me attitude.
• Flashback: We aren't shown the details of Scott and Heather's breakup until his Heroic BSoD after the party on Friday, where Heather talks in detail about her own dark epiphany that high school is over and she's a completely different person than who she was, and we learn that Scott has had a similar experience and is in full-blown psychological denial over it.
• Flyover Country: There's a lot of visual "ruin porn" in this movie, showing us the faded glories of the unfashionable and abandoned parts of the United States, and the angst of the young adults born and raised here who hope to escape to New York or LA. (Scott mentions that the main thing Hollidaysburg has going for it is that it's the "home of the Slinky".)
• Full-Frontal Assault: Trish, the old lady who's so ticked off by Scott peeing against a tree in her yard that she comes out to attack him with a baseball bat wearing nothing but a robe that is flapping completely open (while Tori is completely oblivious and texting with Katie in the car). Made even better by how, after she's driven Scott away, she casually greets her neighbor (played by co-producer Victor Quinaz) making no effort to cover herself up.
• The Ghost:
  • Scott and Phil's parents, who, unbeknownst to Scott, have already moved to Florida before the start of the movie.
  • Also true of Petroff's mom, whom he lives with and has a strained relationship with but who never appears onscreen, apparently having a highly demanding job that keeps her out of the house (which it's implied contributed heavily to his issues).
• Glory Days: Scott and Heather are both having an emotional crisis over the idea that they peaked in high school — which, given the small and unglamorous community they come from, is pretty damn sad. A strong contrast to Tori, who is only just now coming into herself after spending high school as an invisible wallflower. For his part, Scott has a clear vision of the kind of Jaded Washout he might become in the form of his older brother Phil, and is struggling over whether becoming Phil would really be such a bad thing.
• Heroic BSoD: Both Scott and Heather had some kind of psychological breakdown during their first semester at college; in Scott's case we hear him tell Tori it's over an extreme loneliness he can only describe in the hilariously petty terms "Nobody returns my high fives." Scott has a second one after seeing Heather with Petroff at the party, where he's unable to maintain his barrier of denial and finally breaks down violently in his room.
• Hypocritical Humor: Heather's dad lashes out furiously at her for her desire to "throw her life away" by dropping out of college and becoming a waitress at his restaurant, only for her stepmom — whom he met while she was a waitress at his restaurant — to innocently ask what's so bad about being a waitress.
• Idealized Sex: Deliberately averted — much more than the glossy teen comedy of the original screenplay, this film focuses on the awkwardness and messiness of real-life sex, especially sex among teens and inexperienced young adults, including giving Scott the indignity of a Premature Ejaculation during his and Tori's first time.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Just making out with Scott is a fulfillment of such a long-held fantasy for Tori that she spontaneously comes with all her clothes still on, something she tries to hide but he immediately notices.
• Impossible Task: Phil spends the weekend going down a bizarre rabbit hole — possibly drug-fueled — where, after having tried and failed to recycle the family's leftover Halloween pumpkins into a decent pie, he is obsessively trying to recreate his father's famous pumpkin pie recipe from scratch. After baking hundreds of pies until he finally succeeds, he breaks down and admits to Scott this whole quest has been a psychological proxy for his frustrated desire to become a father himself.
• Improv: Martemucci revealed the funniest line in the film — "This evaporated milk, should I be worried about it evaporating?" — was improvised by Phil Quinaz.
• In Name Only: Original screenwriter Dan Schoffer and director Anna Martemucci end up agreeing that Martemucci (with help from her husband and co-producer Victor Quinaz) has made so many changes to his script that it isn't the same story at all anymore, and Schoffer only remains credited as the writer of the film because of WGA union rules. (Interestingly, despite all the trademark "Shane Dawson humor" added to Not Cool, Schoffer does think of that movie as essentially faithful to his vision and a movie he was willing to put his support behind.)
• I Reject Your Reality: We eventually learn how the bizarre miscommunication happened that had Scott come home to Hollidaysburg for Thanksgiving even though his parents have already moved to Florida — Scott actually did know but went into deep denial over this, including deliberately cutting off contact from his parents for weeks so they couldn't tell him not to come, because he is deeply mentally unwell.
• It's All About Me: Katie seems to think it's only natural to treat Tori, Scott, Heather and Petroff's tangled relationship issues as though they did it to spite her personally.
• Jerkass: Katie, who used to bully and control Tori to an absurd degree, is an incorrigible gossip and hypocritical slut-shamer, casually drops racist remarks and makes fun of Courtney's vocal chord injury the moment she finds out about it, and flies into a jealous rage over the Scott/Heather/Tori/Petroff Love Dodecahedron that's none of her business. It's notable that Courtney wryly remarks that Katie sounds like a colorful character she'd like to meet only to be told they've already met, whereupon she corrects herself and says she doesn't like Katie at all. Some but not all of this behavior can be excused or at least explained by the fact that she's apparently an Armored Closet Gay.
• Last-Name Basis: Will Petroffsky (who was known as "William" in Schoffer's original screenplay) is in this film known only as "Petroff", a shortening of his last name, and is one of many members of this social group who has a moniker like this (Truth in Television for tight-knit groups of school friends who need to distinguish between people with common first names like "Will").
• Limited Wardrobe: A lampshaded trope with Heather, who doesn't change out of her gray sweatshirt and sweatpants combo at all for most of the movie as a result of her depression (Scott even gives us some Fan Disservice after they have sex by remarking on the fact she apparently hasn't showered in a while). Showing up in a new outfit at the party on Friday is a sign that Petroff has successfully started to get her to snap out of it.
• Love Dodecahedron: Scott and Heather are the former Official Couple who just broke up. Heather rebounds with Scott's best friend Petroff — causing drama between the two of them — while Scott rebounds with former high school nobody Tori, who used to idolize Heather and want to be her. This dredges up jealousy from Tori's best friend and Scott's ex Katie, even though Katie broke up with Scott years ago. This turns out to be because Katie has been nursing a crush on Tori herself for years.
• Manchild: Phil is old enough that his immature behavior squarely classifies him as this; it's ambiguous as to whether Scott will follow in his footsteps. It's also notable that Scott's stoner friend Petroff averts this trope — despite superficially being a loser and a druggie he's apparently the most responsible and mature person in the cast.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Petroff" (Will Petroffsky) is the Slavic surname form of "Peter", which means "rock". Petroff's role in the story is to serve as Heather's anchor during her emotional crisis.
  • Tori is given the surname of Humilovich, appropriate for someone struggling with her self-esteem.
• The Narrator: Tori. The Book Ends of the film are Tori's staring out the window of the bus between Pittsburgh and Hollidaysburg musing to herself in voiceover (and poking fun at herself over the Fauxlosophic Narration).
• The Nicknamer: Scott, who still calls Tori "Poopdick" because of a school presentation where she mispronounced "poop deck". A trait inherited from his brother Phil, with an inside joke where the two of them call each other "Meesh" and "Moosh".
• Noodle Incident: This script is filled with them, some of which are eventually elaborated on but many of which aren't. A major theme of the film is the feeling of being part of a circle of school friends who've all known each other since childhood and knowing everyone's personal history going back years, and how this is both reassuring and stifling.
• Odd Friendship: Heather and Petroff's ambiguous romance feels like this — nothing overtly sexual or romantic happens between them, and she seems to latch onto Petroff mainly because she feels safe around him because he has no expectations of her (having known him for years as nothing but Scott's loser drug-dealing friend).
• Official Couple: In-universe, Scott and Heather used to be this and their breakup shakes up their whole social circle. Scott and Tori become the Official Couple of the movie, with Heather and Petroff the Beta Couple.
• Only in Florida: We get a scene of Scott and Phil reading "Florida Man" articles to each other and joking about how they, too, will soon become Florida Men now that their parents have moved. We then find out that Tori's stepdad, Mitch, hails from Tallahassee and is every inch the Florida Man stereotype.
• The Place: The Chair initially stipulated that, since it was partially funded by a grant from a Pittsburgh arts organization, the films not only be produced and filmed in Pittsburgh but also keep Pittsburgh as the in-story setting. Martemucci ended up bending this rule — the title town of Hollidaysburg (a suburb of Altoona) is 100 miles away from Pittsburgh, and indeed her version of the story has the "big city" Tori is coming home for Thanksgiving from be Pittsburgh (she's a student at Carnegie Mellon), despite the fact that the romantic ruined warehouse Scott takes Tori to is the famous Carrie Furnace in Pittsburgh. Martemucci said the serendipity of "Hollidaysburg" as a Double-Meaning Title was too good to pass up (Hollidaysburg is a hometown that the kids who went away for college will increasingly only ever see for visits on holidays).
• Pool Scene: Subverted. Petroff takes Heather to the house of a rich friend whose family owns a luxurious heated pool, but neither of them ends up swimming, instead sitting morosely at the side of the pool while smoking up in awkward silence.
• Psycho Lesbian: Katie's cruel and controlling behavior toward Tori turns out to be because she's been nursing a repressed crush on her for years. Martemucci probably had Tori's sister also be gay in her version of the script specifically to avoid the problems with this reveal.
• The Quiet One: Courtney, enforced on her by having apparently strained her voice earlier this week.
• This Is Reality: Martemucci's interpretation of Schoffer's script involves a lot of Cerebus Syndrome-style edits to his scenarios to make them feel more real. The big one is the inciting incident of Tori hitting Scott in her car — he imagined it as nothing but a Meet Cute, but in this film they immediately bring up the question of whether Scott has a concussion and needs medical attention, and whether this will lead to Tori getting arrested for a DUI.
• Real Men Can Cook:
  • Scott and Phil's dad, who never appears onscreen. Scott came home partly because he was desperately looking forward to his dad's cooking, and Phil is obsessed with recreating his dad's famous pumpkin pie recipe. There's some obvious Subtext — with Scott and Phil otherwise living off of takeout the whole weekend and having Thanksgiving dinner at a cheap restaurant — that his sons' inability to cook for themselves represents their immaturity and inability to grow beyond their boyhood.
  • To a lesser extent, Heather's dad, who, like her mom, made his fortune in the restaurant business and gets effusive praise from her stepdad Mitch for his contribution to their Thanksgiving dinner.
  • Notably, Petroff, who is the same age as Scott and at first appears to be cut from the same cloth as Scott and Phil, can cook — that's his job, working at a local pizzeria in the kitchen — and also ends up coming off as the most mature and thoughtful of the main characters, despite initial appearances.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Petroff gives a very harsh one to Heather about Heather trying to "slum it" for the weekend and learn how to survive as a college dropout by imitating his example, pointing out that she's talking about throwing away a huge gift from her parents without even considering other options.
• Rope Bridge: Scott and Tori have a cute moment during their "field trip" where they dare each other to cross a very long and shaky one of these. (Viewers of The Chair will note that this was Truth in Cinema — hashing out the safety and liability issues of filming this scene was a big problem for Anna's shoot.)
• Seinfeldian Conversation: Like many indie dramedies, Martemucci loves doing this — a particular highlight is Angela and Courtney (played by Martemucci herself) derailing a conversation about the toxicity of Angela and Tori's parents into a debate about the proper way to pronounce the term "phyllo dough". Petroff and Heather's disjointed stoner conversations are another highlight, especially Heather interrupting Petroff's long-winded and obviously insincere woolgathering about his plan to make a fortune speculating on oil in North Dakota to joke about her fetish for abusing children.
• Self-Deprecation: One of the many ways this script comes off as meta — Tori snarks at herself that she's been "underlining a lot more sentences in books", which almost feels the same as actually being a sophisticated and educated person. The unavoidably pretentious flourish of ending her final monologue with a quote from John Updike gets undercut by her mentioning it's "one of the quotes she's underlined".
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Tori interrupts Scott's attempted confession of love with one. She may have been inspired by Katie pulling this on her the previous night.
• Sidekick: Tori openly describes herself as having been one for Katie for her entire childhood and adolescence, and is only now trying to break out and become her own person.
• Sleeping with the Boss: Both of Heather's parents were cheating on each other with someone who worked for them, and are now married to the person they were cheating with — her dad with a waitress at his restaurant, her mom with the family auto mechanic.
• The Stoner: Phil and Petroff, who both verge on Erudite Stoner at moments. Petroff is a more grounded version of this trope, whereas Phil gets most of the Stoners Are Funny moments.

• Tantrum Throwing: Phil has been nagging Scott to pack up his old room for the whole movie, and Scott resolutely refuses to touch anything in it until his nervous breakdown after seeing Heather with Will at Katie's party, whereupon he starts trashing everything in it in an orgy of despair over the end of his childhood.
• Thanksgiving Episode: Takes place entirely over the five days of Thanksgiving weekend (from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to the Sunday following).
• Toxic Friend Influence: It's strongly hinted that Tori's old circle of high school friends is this for her and for the other characters (Scott, Heather, Petroff), although this is more about a lack of ambition and a willingness to coast on old Glory Days than the more lurid version of this trope about openly destructive criminal behavior. When Tori tries to give an example of why she wants to distance herself from these guys, she ends up telling us about a hilariously petty Noodle Incident about pranking "the only Russian kid in class" into thinking they were all high on heroin in order to trick him into asking them for heroin, only for them to lamely reveal they didn't have any.
• Uptown Girl: Heather's relationship with Petroff, although the movie ends with it still ambiguous whether their relationship will become romantic or remain an Interclass Friendship. (Both of her parents have a similar story, her dad running off with a waitress from the restaurant he owns and her mom running off with the family auto mechanic.)
• We All Die Someday: Heather says this as what seems to be a bizarre Non Sequitur when Scott asks her why she wants to break up with him; it turns out that her general thoughts about mortality and impermanence are all mixed up with her general depression based on feeling like she's not the same person she was before graduation and has no idea what she wants to do with her life.
• Wild Teen Party: A couple, but played more realistically and low-key than a typical teen comedy; even at their rowdiest the parties mostly just feature people talking on the couch. The final party that ends the movie — Phil's farewell party at Phil and Scott's former home — is a major aversion of this trope, taking place during the day rather than at night, and involving no booze, drugs or loud music, instead just inviting everyone he knows to come by and help him finish his many, many pumpkin pies.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Mitch, who reassures Heather she's making the right decision by telling her about his adventures in life after he dropped out of college — including going to prison and joining a cult. It's implied this does, in fact, change her mind about dropping out, at least for now.

---