Hap­pi­est Season

In an ide­al world, Christ­mas para­pher­na­lia (dec­o­ra­tions, films, songs and, yes, mince pies) would only sur­face between the peri­od of 1 – 31 Decem­ber. In that same world, a hol­i­day movie star­ring a same-sex cou­ple wouldn’t be a news sto­ry, it would be an accept­ed part of the release sched­ule, to be eval­u­at­ed accord­ing­ly based on its merits.

But we’re not there yet; Christ­mas might as well start the day after Hal­loween, and although things do seem to be head­ing in the right direc­tion as far as on-screen rep­re­sen­ta­tion is con­cerned, it’s at a slow enough rate that it still feels nov­el when a film­mak­er is able to make a queer hol­i­day movie – let alone one that receives a size­able dis­tri­b­u­tion and mar­ket­ing budget.

Last year brought us Let It Snow and Sea­son of Love, but Clea DuVall’s Hap­pi­est Sea­son feels decid­ed­ly more high pro­file thanks to its star­ry cast. Kris­ten Stew­art and Macken­zie Davis play Abby and Harp­er, a les­bian cou­ple who live togeth­er in Pitts­burgh and decide to spend the hol­i­days with Harper’s fam­i­ly in a quaint Penn­syl­va­nia town where things like may­oral elec­tions and white ele­phant par­ties are the most impor­tant events in the social cal­en­dar. It also tran­spires that – despite hav­ing told Abby a dif­fer­ent sto­ry – Harp­er is yet to tell her par­ents she’s gay, or that she is in a long-term relationship.

In an impres­sive dis­play of patience and under­stand­ing, Abby agrees to keep her girlfriend’s secret, pos­ing as Harper’s ​“orphan friend” when they arrive at her parent’s house, where prepa­ra­tions are under­way to secure patri­arch Ted (Vic­tor Gar­ber) fund­ing for his upcom­ing may­oral run. Harper’s moth­er Tip­per (Mary Steen­bur­gen) is a non-non­sense per­fec­tion­ist obsessed with pre­sent­ing the image of a per­fect fam­i­ly, while Harper’s sis­ters Sloane and Jane (Ali­son Brie and Mary Cald­well) present their own unique chal­lenges which the cou­ple have to con­tend with.

Add some com­i­cal awk­ward run-ins with exes and a few small-mind­ed local-towns­folk, and the stage is set for a fes­tive com­e­dy about the dif­fi­cul­ties of nav­i­gat­ing famil­ial rela­tion­ships dur­ing the pur­port­ed most won­der­ful time of the year. It’s a dynam­ic that’s set the stage for Christ­mas movies for years, from It’s a Won­der­ful Life to Elf; most hol­i­day clas­sics come down to the fraught rela­tion­ships between our near­est and dearest.

As such, Hap­pi­est Sea­son is a fair­ly con­ven­tion­al hol­i­day jaunt, although it’s ele­vat­ed by Stew­art and Davis’ chem­istry and a won­der­ful­ly com­mit­ted turn from Mary Steen­bur­gen as the over­bear­ing moth­er from one hun­dred Pin­ter­est-fuelled night­mares. Rather than inno­vat­ing, the sto­ry is more about the telling – DuVall achieves some sweet moments and mem­o­rable slap­stick gags, even if the creepy Grady twins who tor­ment Abby feel far-fetched even for the fan­tas­ti­cal likes of the Christ­mas genre.

Com­ing out to fam­i­ly mem­bers is still a very real part of life for many LGBT+ peo­ple, and it can be an incred­i­bly painful expe­ri­ence. The film’s great­est strength is how it high­lights that it doesn’t always go to plan, and that’s okay too. In one of the film’s more touch­ing moments, Abby’s friend John (Dan Levy) recalls his own com­ing out sto­ry, and how his father stopped talk­ing to him for years because he’d rather have no son than a gay one. While rep­re­sen­ta­tion in stu­dio films often feels like a cyn­i­cal attempt at cash­ing in or check­ing a box, at least Hap­pi­est Sea­son is sin­cere; an earnest, endear­ing sto­ry about the pres­sure we put on our­selves to per­form perfection.

And that’s the thing: I don’t real­ly care that Hap­pi­est Sea­son is pre­dictable, or that every loose end is tied up neat­ly with a fes­tive bow. As much as crit­i­cism is about dis­sect­ing writ­ing and act­ing and cin­e­matog­ra­phy, it’s also about under­stand­ing the film land­scape, and what movies like Hap­pi­est Sea­son mean in a wider con­text. LGBT+ peo­ple deserve to see them­selves on screen in cheesy rom-coms as much as in art­house dra­mas like Car­ol. And par­tic­u­lar­ly after the unre­lent­ing onslaught of mis­ery that 2020 has been, it feels pret­ty nice to watch a film where a fam­i­ly acknowl­edges a need to work through their dis­func­tion, and a les­bian cou­ple get their hap­pi­ly ever after.