Happiest Season Review

As a lesbian who has only recently come out, I’ve spent much of the last couple years processing my sexuality and identity and what it means for me and my interactions with others. During this time, I’ve been watching lots of media that contain sapphic relationships, and while I do love the heavier, deeper explorations of queer identity and womanhood inherent in films like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, there’s also an unfortunate dearth of light-hearted lesbian rom-coms made for comfort and validation. I believe these are equally important for self-expression. Personally, I yearn for the day where we can have queer rom-coms that are just accepting and feel-good, and don’t feel confined to having to process coming out stories or homophobia. We’re a long way away from this being the norm, but it’s really nice still that a film like Clea DuVall's Happiest Season can be made for wide audiences, attempting to give queer women the same positive, affirming, feel-good cinematic experiences that straight women so often take for granted.

Happiest Season may not be quite the dizzying, feel-good queer holiday classic people wanted, but there are times where it gets very close to hitting that bar, and overall I just really love that a movie like this exists at all. It certainly won’t be for everyone; many queer women are tired of coming out stories like this, and this film in particular mostly focuses on a white, cisgender, upper-middle class family, which obviously doesn’t reflect everyone’s experience. For me, though, it has just enough good that I ended up watching it again the day after.

The story follows an established couple named Abby and Harper, played by Kirsten Stewart and Mackenzie Davis respectively. The two of them are deeply in love, but after inviting Abby to her parents for Christmas on a whim, Harper reveals she has a secret; she still hasn’t come out to her family.

The film is pretty strange as far as rom-coms go. It focuses far more on how Harper’s indecisiveness and attempts to please everyone hurts Abby, but it doesn’t give us a lot of her actual point of view. Abby, meanwhile, is essentially dragged through the mud by a lot of her actions, and there’s an awful lot of anxiety under the surface. A lot of people on social media seem to view Harper as an essentially toxic person, and I really get where they’re coming from, and the script really does put too much emphasis on her shitty side. My takeaway from it was decidedly different, though. So much of Harper’s actions come from a place of feeling trapped between losing her family and losing her girlfriend, and that’s a really tough situation for anyone to be in, let alone someone who’s first resort to this sort of thing is to push it down and hide. Harper’s family is visibly toxic, with her parents caring more about their image and reputation than the happiness of each other, leading them to give mostly conditional love to their children. With Harper’s dad running for office on a presumably conservative platform, there’s a lot on the line, and to say that Harper coming out could cause issues is a bit of an understatement. I watched it with a few people who were able to empathize with Harper’s plight and that helped me see more of what this story was trying to accomplish.

Happiest Season is ultimately a story about authenticity and family. A toxic family dynamic caused Harper to be filled with insecurities over her identity, and this in turn conflicts with her desire to be with the one she loves, and trying to satisfy both of these lives without reconciling them is ultimately the main reason she ends up hurting Abby as much as she does. I really think the film’s biggest flaw is in how little it shows us of what she’s normally like around Abby, so we aren’t truly sold on their relationship before Harper’s flaws are revealed.

All that being said, I really do enjoy this film despite its flaws. Not every joke lands, but overall it’s very funny, and there are a lot of genuinely emotional scenes and satisfying character beats throughout. The side cast is genuinely wonderful. Aubrey Plaza as Riley plays a great friend character for Abby, and I love seeing lesbian friends as well as lesbian lovers in media. Dan Levy’s John and Mary Holland’s Jane are also incredible, and of course the main duo is nothing to scoff at. Kirsten Stewart in particular steals the show, and there’s a sense of liberation and freeness to her performance as she finally allows herself to embrace her queer side in her acting after so many years of playing straight roles. Plus, she’s absolutely gorgeous.

Happiest Season isn’t without its problems, and it’s maybe not quite the feel good gay rom-com of the year that people wanted, but it does come through when it matters most. It left me feeling warm and cozy inside like a good Christmas movie should. It’s so validating to finally see movies like this produced for the mainstream and geared towards queer women, and I can only hope that this will open the door for other, even better films like it.