Kristen Stewart celebrates the Happiest Season in a pioneering queer Christmas rom-com
Film Reviews moviereview
Mix The Family Stone with While You Were Sleeping, add a touch of My Best Friend’s Wedding, and give the whole thing a lesbian makeover, and you’ve got Happiest Season, Hulu’s much-anticipated new holiday rom-com starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis. If that makes the film sound a touch derivative, that’s kind of the point. Writer/director/longtime lesbian icon Clea DuVall set out to put a queer spin on the sort of comforting, feel-good holiday romances that straight audiences have been enjoying for decades. And like the similarly trailblazing teen movie Love, Simon, that means Happiest Season feels like nothing you’ve seen before and also like a lot of things you’ve seen before.
The boldest choice DuVall makes in her second feature is to skip past the flutters of first love and instead center the film around a couple in crisis. It’s not until halfway through a road trip to her parents’ house that Harper Caldwell (Davis) confesses to girlfriend Abby (Stewart) that she’s not out to her family yet. So while Abby had been planning to propose at the Caldwell family Christmas, she instead finds herself pretending to be Harper’s straight roommate. Even worse, she’s shocked to discover that her quirky, fun-loving girlfriend acts differently when she’s around her competitive, conservative family. Being back in her hometown seems to awaken Harper’s latent high school mean girl, as she starts ditching Abby to schmooze with her parents’ colleagues or grab drinks with her high-school boyfriend.
DuVall lets Harper be full-on unlikable at points, which doesn’t particularly aid the film as a romance or comedy, but does take it to some interesting dramatic places. Happiest Season is about dualities of self in a way that speaks to the specific queer experience of being in the closet, yet it’s equally relatable to anyone who feels like they become a different person around their family. Harper’s politician dad (Victor Garber) and image-focused mom (Mary Steenburgen) have slotted their three daughters into preordained roles and then subtly pitted them against one another. That leaves Harper with plenty to unpack in her relationship with her sisters, played by a characteristically neurotic Alison Brie and a characteristically wacky Mary Holland (who also co-wrote the film with DuVall).
Abby, meanwhile, gets to explore the “found family” aspect of the queer experience as she looks to sympathetic sounding boards in her best friend John (Schitt’s Creek’s Daniel Levy), who’s also gay, and Harper’s secret high-school girlfriend Riley (Aubrey Plaza). Playing one of her most “normal” characters to date, Stewart turns in an affable leading lady performance that fits somewhere between her more reserved indie work and her energetically mischievous turn in last year’s Charlie’s Angels. Though Abby doesn’t exactly seem like someone who would dazzle parents upon first meeting them, as we’re meant to believe, Stewart makes for a charmingly sheepish rom-com everywoman. She’s always comfortable on screen, even when Abby isn’t. And Stewart does her best work when she’s breezily bouncing off of Levy and Plaza, the latter of whom turns in a performance so magnetic it almost unbalances the whole film.
Happiest Season’s biggest stumbling block is that its opening scenes don’t do enough to establish that same level of connection between Stewart and Davis. Abby and Harper’s early bond is fueled more by generic platitudes than by the believable specifics of a serious year-long relationship, which means Happiest Season requires a big buy-in from its audience when it comes to investing in the film’s central couple as they head toward a rough patch. The fact that Stewart and Davis are beautiful, charismatic, and wear the hell out of some impeccable clothing (courtesy of costume designer Kathleen Felix-Hager) sort of papers over that fundamental weakness—as does the sheer thrill of seeing a same-sex couple placed center stage in this kind of cheery studio rom-com. But the actual romance portion of this holiday romance is somewhat uneven.
Instead, Happiest Season bounces back and forth between being a fascinating character drama and a zippily cheesy comedy. Not all the jokes land, but the film gets major points for pulling off a surprisingly funny runner about Abby’s dead parents. Steenburgen and Holland consistently wring laughs from even the most mundane lines through sheer force of off-kilter delivery. And Levy gets to put his dramatic chops to use in a lovely climatic monologue about the coming-out experience. If Happiest Season often feels like it’s trying to be several movies at once, there’s something to be said for the value of having too many ideas rather than too few—particularly in a genre known for its well-worn formulas. It’s possible to imagine a much more risk-taking movie than the one DuVall has made. But before a film can break the queer holiday rom-com mold, someone has to set it up first. And Happiest Season is a welcome starting point.
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I’m hyped. And stunned Clea Duvall’s lesbian romcom doesn’t appear to have a Lyonne cameo. But mostly hyped.
She was in DuVall’s last movie!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intervention_(film)
She’s in loads of stuff with Clea, and also loads of queer media!
The Intervention likewise featured a lesbian couple (Duvall and Lyonne) who have been together long enough that they are past the honeymoon phase and have to actually confront some of the issues in their relationship
while we are stanning Clea and Natasha2oth anniversary directors cut (with scenes added) out next month
<3
But I’m a Cheerleader is the greatest lesbian rom-com, with the possible exception of Alice Wu’s Saving Face
Just saw Saving Face, it was brilliant. I can’t believe it took 18 years for the director to make another movie.
Just saw Saving Face, it was brilliant. I can’t believe it took 18 years for the director to make another movie.
and this one
Show Me Love would like a word with you.
I bet she’ll show up!
I hate this movie already because I am the kind of queer person that rejects breathless promos and hates criticism and forces people around the thanksgiving table to discuss “Welcome to the Dollhouse” and hey, where are you all going except the other person my age who is a big super Kristen Stewart fan on account of werewolves so obviously this is a person I can corner and talk to about other mass market gay shit in order avoid doing the dishes?
you good?
Well, no, because I forgot to log into my “dumb commenter” gimmick account before posting that.
In terms of the evolution of the Christmas movie …Once upon a time people had to make films in this fashion:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/krystieyandoli/too-cool-for-christmas-a-very-cool-christmas-viral-tweet“This week, a tweet about the 2004 Christmas movies Too Cool For Christmas and A Very Cool Christmas started going viral after people discovered the films were the same exact story, but one version featured a same-sex couple and the other version featured a straight couple.”
Ahahahaha, why didn’t they give the replacement gay guy a stylish robe like what the wife got? Also, the husband seems much more into the dude than the lady.
The idea that they would do a few takes with the character’s wife, then swap her out and do a few takes with the character’s husband is just delightful. Honestly, this seems like the setup for a screwball comedy – the gay filmmakers convince a conservative financier to produce their romantic comedy and come up with increasingly convoluted plans to hide what the movie is about.
I would watch that.
Kind of like Bowfinger, but gay. I have never been more into an idea in my entire life.
The guy is charged with polygamy; turns out they live in a state with an explicit ban on same-sex marriage so the judge throws out the case.
This reminds me of Rachel Bloom talking about filming her music video for “F*** Me Ray Bradbury” in a (I think shut down/unused?) Catholic school and having to keep the alternate audio of “Love Me Ray Bradbury” on hand in case one of the church officials stopped by to watch the shoot.
After Charlie’s Angels and Terminator: Dark Fate, if these two ladies are in a movie together, they need to have a flex off.
All-lady Predator remake with Stewart and Davis doing the Schwarzenegger/Weathers handshake? The female Shane Black will be played by a roided-up Diablo Cody.
Mneh…I’m rooting for this movie to be good, because I like a lot of the people in it and I’m always game for more queer representation, but I think the “gay people deserve feel-good movies too!” card is a bit overplayed. Like, yes, we do, but aim higher! There should be some middle-ground between Portrait of a Lady on Fire and “serviceable rom com your mom always watches on cable but with lesbians”.
like Attack the Block, but for lesbians**I watch Attack the Block every holiday season
Gays have finally arrived! Now they are just as lame as straight couples!
Well that has been true for a while now.
Well that has been true for a while now.
Let’s make it clear that no way am I watching poor gays!
Like there are poor gays…I watch reality TV and I know they don’t exist!
We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re bland, get used to it!
I mean as a gay as well, Christmas movies are supposed to be inherently cheesy, I’m happy we have a cheesy movie for ourselves now that also subtly tackles the fact that a lot of people still cannot come out to their folks and the Holidays are wildly triggering.
On the other hand, at least we’ve reached a point where gay people can complain about the “correct way of representation”
unfortunately, after watching ‘portrait’ about 15 times during lockdown, i have developed impossibly high standards for gay movies and a decidedly low tolerance for middling gay nonsense.
i’ll still watch this, but i think i have a healthy expectation of how dissatisfied i’ll be. i’m kinda used to the idea that these gay things are meant for other gays, not me.
My logic is, there’s room for both. Yeah, it’s nice to get something with artistic merit like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, or even something in the middle, but it’s also nice seeing yourself represented in one of those cheesy feel-good Christmas movies you grew up watching. I’d personally really enjoy having a quality feel-good movie that I feel represented in during the holiday season. It’s about being represented in every kind of movie, not just one.
Nope, sorry, you get this and a middling superhero movie, such is the path to equality!
A New York Christmas Wedding, also on
Netflix, tries to be both by addressing the difficulty of being queer and religious, as well as the
allure of conforming to cultural expectations by staying closeted…but during the holidays. It
is undoubtedly braver than Happiest Season will be, but isn’t Schitt x
Twilight, so who cares, right?
The review does a pretty good job pinning down the movie’s strengths, but it’s hard to oversell just how thoughtful and well made this movie is. It’s a few rungs under “great” and waaay above “serviceable.” The main characters’ relationship is kind of generic, but the conflict at the movie’s heart – Davis’s character acting callous and immature while Stewart’s character tries to figure out how far she’s willing to extend herself – is very specific and impressively blunt. The characters act believably in a situation that’s just heightened enough to be funny rather than unpleasant, so the movie really earns its third act.
I am glad that people are shifting away from having these unfair standards towards queer rom coms. I remember seeing Love, Simon and just thinking it was just okay but is She’s All That actually good or is just a silly movie I saw with my friends and I have nostalgia for? I 100 % certain it’s the latter. These movies should exist for queer kids the way teen comedies just existed for me. I do hope more queer rom coms move away from the “I am not out to my parents” cliche. I get that it’s very, very common but sometimes art comes first and then culture changes. It would be cool to see a queer film where the parents just don’t like the romantic partner because of their job or some other silly reason that a lot of straight rom coms do.
I’ve noticed it’s getting more common for characters in teen movies to be gay and out, without any to-do. Blockers, Booksmart, and Unpregnant spring to mind. Granted those are all female characters in supporting roles – I can’t think of a similar pattern for male characters and/or lead roles.
Not to deny the overall point, but at least in Booksmart one of the two protagonists is out, right?
In terms of screen time, that’s true – ditto Unpregnant. However, I really think Beanie Feldstein is the main character of Booksmart – the movie’s plot revolves more around her insecurities and ambitions, and her character is more clearly defined than Kaitlyn Dever’s.
Hm, really? Dever sings karaoke, makes out with an obvious Olivia Wilde stand-in, and gets arrested before delivering her valedictorian address! She came off as the main character to Feldstein’s sidekick to me.
I do think some of that is open to interpretation, but it’s a compelling point. Does make you wonder when we’ll see more LGBT characters in films that don’t have to exist alongside strait people in order for their stories not to be considered gay “issue” media.
I would watch the hell out of a rom-com where David Levy brings home a Pete Buttigieg-type to his very PFLAG, almost-uncomfortably-supportive parents, who have no idea how to relate to a gay person who can’t be euphemistically described as “artsy.”
Yes, excellent.
WANT.
Wow, yes totally. Picturing a Henry Cavill type?
As much as it pains me to say no to Henry Cavill doing literally anything, I was picturing more on the “guy next door” side of the spectrum. Like Dustin Milligan, maybe? Or the guy who plays Chidi on the Good Place? Handsome but not in an immediately sexual way.
Gotcha.
That’s why Son In Law is timeless.
The premise for this movie is so painfully obvious for a rom-com that it seems almost criminal it took this long.
I’m pretty sure the movie “Lez Bomb” from a couple years ago had the exact same plot. This looks better though.
2009’s “Make the Yuletide Gay” did as well.
I just fundamentally can’t accept the premise of this movie, in which Stewart is the blonde and Davis the brunette.
I could be swayed, but that’s mostly due to the promo pics for Underwater, in which Stewart is blonde and has a buzz cut.
Ha, it’s both of them together that throws me. I saw who was in it and then saw the preview and was legitimately confused for a minute.
Underwater was the last movie that I saw in a theater (other than drive-ins), and it was a whole lot of stupid fun.
I’m kind of surprised that Dakota Johnson didn’t use her famous parents to lean on the actors guild to stop Mackenzie Davis from dyeing her hair dark.
That weirdly seems like exactly the sort of thing that Dakota Johnson would do, doesn’t it?
On the one hand, I have absolutely zero insight into her professional or personal life. On the other, this seems like something either her or Allison Williams would need to stop and Williams doesn’t have the clout.
I watched this last night with my wife and YES. Something was throwing me off for the first 20 or so minutes and then I realized it just seemed weird. It’s irrational and a bizarre hangup but it just totally threw me.
Sounds just as bad as every single other rom com so yay for equal access to crappy movies I guess?
Based on the trailer: Dan Levy and Aubrey Plaza will steal this film away from everyone, including those with Oscars and Oscar nominations. People will write fanfiction where Aubrey and Kristen’s characters run off together. Victor Garber is the best at playing straight.
I had to double-check that the line about Victor Garber was indeed a play on words. Well played. Also, my wife and I have been watching Schitt’s Creek the last couple of weeks, and this movie might be a good opportunity to change our slate without experiencing Daniel Levy withdrawal.
Victor Garber plays it straight in Season 6 of Schitt’s Creek, too! I have always thought Dan Levy is going to have a fantastic career playing variations of Dan Levy and that is just fine with me. He’s great at that, as is the case for a sentient ball of wit and charisma.
I’d watch a movie called The Dan Levy Movie where it’s just 6 hours of Dan Levy being Dan Levy. He’s a delight.
There’s a reason he’s a regular on every talk show. He’s just so charming and funny, the host doesn’t have to do anything. I think he’s going to have a career much like Woody Allen (pre MeToo, and without the scumminess). He’s going to play various versions of Dan Levy in brilliant things he’s written and occasionally branch out to play other versions of Dan Levy in things he didn’t write. Dramatic, comic, serious-comic. We’ll get all the Dan we need, and we need a lot.
Narrator: “All of this turned out to be accurate.”
Oddly I used to confuse Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza, both having started out as offbeat brunette sidekicks in sitcoms, who have since developed amazing careers. (Not confusing who they are now, but more “Wait, was she in Community?”) Seeing them in the same movie was almost like having Sarah Michelle Geller and Kristen Bell cast as sisters.
After seeing the movie, I can say that Levy and Mary Holland subtly make off with it. Aubrey Plaza comes off as unbelievably… can’t believe I’m saying this… low-key and charming. The whole cast is really great, though. I don’t think I’ve straight-up enjoyed a movie this much in a while. And yeah, I was about 50% sure that the movie would end with Plaza and Stewart running off together.
Holland is fantastic. Her character is adorable, and the fact that a platonic connection is made with her and Levy’s character is icing on the holiday cake.
Just watched and this is completely accurate. I would add that Jane is the best character.
She’s great! I would watch a movie about John and Jane’s adventures in fantasy fandom.
In 2001, my then 40-year-old cousin Chris brought her “roommate”, Robin, home for Xmas. It was abundantly clear to me (then 38) and my son (then 17), as well as to my siblings and other family members that the women were a couple. Robin took a great liking to my son; she knew an ally when she saw one. (In the present, my son is non-binary and bisexual.) I had question, “How long have y’all been. . .” and realized that they hadn’t told us the were a couple so I finished up with “. . .uh, roommates?”A couple of months later when Robin told Chris “I won’t go home with you again if you don’t come out to your parents.” Once that had been done (and no one was surprised but Chris’s brother), Chris told me, “At Christmas, Robin told me ‘Your cousin [This one here] and her son know we’re gay’.”
I’m thrilled to see this, mostly because although I don’t usually like rom coms, something about the holidays and holiday themes make me a seasonal sucker for some of them. I am, however, in the camp that While You Were Sleeping is creepy as hell and should not be promoted (I love Sandy Bullock, but seriously, the plot is wackadoo).
I think it is understood that (for better or for worse) one is supposed to turn parts of their brain off for rom-coms. Turn off another 10% for every decade older it is than the current time period you live in. So While You Were Sleeping is fine at like 40% of your normal level of critical thinking.
Hulu’s much-anticipated new holiday rom-com starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie DavisBig gay energy in this half-sentence alone.
“…best friend John (Daniel Levy)… high-school girlfriend Riley (Aubrey Plaza)…”(Rainbows erupt across the sky.)
An AV Club “B” is a COVID A-I’m in.
Will the normal romcom audience (middle age straight midwestern white women) watch this? Is there a large enough gay audience to make up for the bigots that wont watch it because of the gays?
you’re really underestimating the size of the rom com audience imo
Plaza, the latter of whom turns in a performance so magnetic it almost unbalances the whole film.Please stop, I can only get so erect.
I, a queer woman, am joking around here, not trying to be legitimately gross. I’m just very excited for this movie and pleased at this review!
Never, ever apologize for making an Archer reference, particularly a Krieger one!
Just watched this film and very much enjoyed it but totally ag ree, they really do not establish them as a couple and get us to invest in them beyond ‘its Kristen Stewart and MackDavjs for gods sake!’ I’m a huge GLOW fan and also thought Terminator Dark Fate was underrated so seeing Alison Brie and Mackenzie Davis fighting did have me wondering whether their differing fight experience kicked in! Lots of good people like Brie in relatively small roles but I enjoyed this a lot,
i think i would have liked this movie if aubrey plaza and alison brie had played the couple instead.
at the very least, i might not have felt as indifferent about the movie after watching it.
Yes! Brie and Plaza would at least make something interesting
I read the review yesterday before watching the movie, and I completely get what you mean about Aubrey Plaza nearly throwing off the balance of the movie. It probably isn’t a good thing that I was rooting for Kristen Stewart to ditch McKenzie Davis and hook up with Plaza instead, right?Overall, it was a “cute” movie… a little (lot) corny, and basically felt like an A-list Hallmark Movie overall. It also takes a lot to make Mary Steenburgen unlikable, but man, did they ever accomplish that tall order.
Stewart is just really terrible in this. Asking her to play any note that isn’t “sullen” is like watching a Terminator trying to replicate human emotion (which is ironic given her costar IS a Terminator)
Abby ended up with the wrong lady. Should have run off with Plaza’s character.