"Happiest Season" is Emotional Edging at Its Lesbian Best

Arts

Dec 2

Featured

“Leave it to lesbians,” tweeted my friend, the comedian Jes Tom, “to call a movie ‘Happiest Season’ and it’s 1 hr 40 minutes of abject emotional suffering.”

It rings true. While Happiest Season, Hulu’s new addition to the holiday movie cannon and the first mainstream film of the genre to feature a lesbian couple, is chock-a-block with charm and wit, it’s hard to imagine a plotline better suited to the question, “What the hell is wrong with these people?” And hey, maybe that’s the right question. What is a jolly queer time without a dollop of suffering.

Happiest Season, directed by longtime out lesbian Clea Duvall, and starring queer icon Kristen Stewart, was a watershed simply in how big of a deal it was: pre-Covid, it was set to be released in theaters nationwide. With a star-studded cast – including Mackenzie Davis as Stewart’s girlfriend Harper, Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen as Harper’s perfectionist parents, and Dan Levy and Aubrey Plaza as deliciously queer side support – and a budget large enough for lots of holiday sparkle, Happiest Season earned its Christmas movie stripes by every measure.

So why did it have to be such a bummer?

The story follows Abby (Stewart, in all her understated, slit-eyed glory) and Harper (tall), gloriously in love, who head to Harper’s family home for the holidays, even though Abby hates Christmas on account of being an orphan (I did say it earned its stripes by every measure). A havoc-inducing gay twist: Harper isn’t out to her family. Abby is presented instead as the orphan roommate, Harper transforms into ideal daughter form, and Abby is forced to navigate five days with what has to be the cruelest Perfect White Family since Get Out*.

It’s painful. It’s painful to watch Harper not only deny her relationship with Abby, but go out of her way to make Abby feel unwanted. It’s painful to watch a family whose bonds seemed forged only for the sake of good PR, underneath which lives little but malice. And it’s painful to remember throughout the “hijinks” of Harper’s callous deception that somehow, by the end of the film, we’re supposed to rejoice when the couple inevitably patches things up. The depth of their dysfunction does the plot a disservice, forcing Duvall to work overtime in convincing us they belong together.

Luckily, the reprieves from this dynamic are Happiest Season’s saving grace. On the whole, everything that isn’t Harper and Abby’s relationship is delightful and gives the film its wings. Dan Levy is crisp and lovable as Abby’s gay best friend. Mary Holland, who co-wrote the script, shines as Harper’s ebulliently awkward sister. A pair of adorable evil twins add a touch of noir we didn’t know we needed in holiday movies.

But no one crashes through the wtf of this film with more panache than Aubrey Plaza. She swans into frame about thirty minutes in, sporting a sharp blazer and her signature smirk, and a lesbian icon is instantly spawned. Plaza knocks it out of the park as Riley, Harper’s high school ex-girlfriend. In the film’s best scene, over beers at a Christmas drag show, Riley reveals to Abby the true breakup story, in which Harper publicly humiliated Riley to maintain her gilded lily reputation. This scene does nothing to endear us to Harper, but everything to secure Riley as the queer lady heartbeat of the film. It’s unclear whether Duvall intended for the most electric chemistry to exist between the couple that’s not going to end up together, or a spark simply ignited between Plaza and Stewart – but whatever the case, it’s very sexy and utterly ruinous to the plot. Abby and Riley - why ever the hell not? By the film’s climax, where Harper is outed to the family but denies her relationship with Abby yet again, we’re all desperately hoping that Abby will steal the Range Rover and drive to Riley’s doorstep,, a perfect dusting of snow on her bleached and tousled mane.

But plot twists such as these do not a Christmas movie make, and of course Abby and Harper beat their way back to happiness, courtesy of a genuinely touching homily from Dan Levy about the difficulties of coming out. There’s a tearful reunion at a Love’s gas station (ah, Love’s, finally receiving its on-screen due) and by the time the snow is falling on Christmas Day, Abby has taken her rightful place in Harper’s family’s holiday photo. The holiday lights are twinkling, the gays are in love, and while it is criminal negligence not to assure us that Riley finds her own KStew, everyone does seem to be reasonably happy. I give this couple a 20% chance of making it, with red flags waving to rival the UN pavilion, but it’s a holiday movie – no one cares what happens come January 1.

The film’s other flaws are currently being aired in the cultural ether. People are saying the film is too white; people are saying we’re done with closeted queer narratives. I think both of these things are true, but irrelevant – these criticisms spring from a scarcity mentality in which we must all agree on a single story, rather than clamoring for many. Duvall made clear this film was autobiographical, so for her, and for others, this particular story will ring true. I have no problem with a new take on an old narrative. I just wanted to believe it more.

I wanted to believe in Abby and Harper the way we believe in every star-crossed, cardboard couple at the heart of every holiday movie. I wanted them to love each other the way the poor baker loves the disguised prince, or the stressed fashion exec loves the humble carpenter. These marriages won’t last either, but who cares, it’s snowing! Holiday movies defy every measure of credible plotline, character motivation, and weather pattern, but as long as we believe in them, they do it for us. I was so close to believing Happiest Season, but in the end it fell just a little bit short.

That said, we lesbians love being emotionally shortchanged, so maybe it’s what we really wanted for Christmas after all.

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* We need to just acknowledge the weird resemblances to Get Out. The palatial family homes are nearly identical, there’s an ominous overhead shot of the unwitting hero driving to an unpleasant fate, and Victor Garber is definitely the kind of white dad who would want you to know he’d have voted Obama for a third term.

Rachel Garbus is a writer, performer, teacher, and who knows what all else in Brooklyn, NY, formerly of Atlanta. She does live comedy, writes essays, and is woefully inept with all plants. Follow her at @goodgraciousrachel.

For more Queer hot takes on “Happiest Season”, listen to the latest episode of WUSSY Movie Club: