Friendo: “I think the alleged “line-by-line” Holdovers/Frisco plagiarism claim really needs to be seriously questioned.
“Is there a single line that has been cited?
“The Holdovers is a movie defined by its dialogue. The writing is fantastic. The voice of the Giamatti character. The words of…everybody.
“The accuser (i.e., Frisco author Simon Stephenson) said that The Holdovers ripped his script off ‘line-by-line.’ And Variety included this angle without questioning it.
“But is there even a whisper of truth to this charge? That, I think, is the point that needs to be made.
“Because if it’s just the plot, it came from that 1935 French movie, Marcel Pagnol‘s Merlusse. (It really did.) If it’s just other elements of the “concept”…well, Hollywood movies lift stuff like that from other movies every fucking day.”
