The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: “Happiest Season” Movie Review

Dyanna Bateman (she/her)

Finally a Christmas movie with lesbians as the main characters! What could possibly go wrong? Warning: Lots of spoilers!

Abby Holland (Kristen Stewart) and her girlfriend Harper Caldwell (Mackenzie Davis) on their way to Christmas at the Caldwell's. Illustration by Atticus Spicer.

The Introduction:
“Happiest Season” follows Abby Holland (Kristen Stewart) and her girlfriend Harper Caldwell (Mackenzie Davis) as they visit the Caldwell family household for Christmas. Harper has not come out to her family because of her parent’s pressure to be the perfect child and the public visibility of the family brought on by her father’s campaign for mayor; therefore, she introduces Abby as only her roommate which leads to an onslaught of awkward and uncomfortable situations. While in Harper’s hometown, Abby meets some of Harper’s exes—her first girlfriend, Riley (Aubrey Plaza), and her last boyfriend, Connor (Jake McDorman). Abby’s best friend, John (Dan Levy), also makes appearances throughout the movie in support of Abby as she is traversing this holiday disaster.

The Good:

• REPRESENTATION! Anyone who knows me knows that I am always talking about LGBTQ+ representation, so I had high hopes for a movie that was using (at least some) queer actors to represent queer characters. (Notably Kristen Stewart, Aubrey Plaza, Dan Levy, and Victor Garber.)
• “Happiest Season” isn’t afraid of showing queer intimacy, which I am happy about. However, by the end it felt like a movie about a Black princess which only showed the princess as a frog for 95% of the film. (Looking at you, Disney.)
• John (Abby’s best friend, played by Dan Levy) offers comedic relief with commentary on heteronormativity and the patriarchy. He provides a general realness to the movie that the other characters are often ignoring.
• Riley (Harper’s ex-girlfriend, played by Aubrey Plaza) offers some realness too. She is the gay perspective that I think is lacking from the main couple, and someone who provides a distraction for the viewer when Harper is too busy acting straight. (Everyone comes out on their own time, but I think there is a line between dropping your partner and staying safe around family.)
• I like that they included John’s coming out story and his talk with Abby as she is struggling with Harper’s secretiveness around their relationship. This was the one point in the film where it felt like different gay narratives were being included, even though it was still extremely white and upper class.

The Bad:

• Happiest Season felt very preformative. It wasn’t a natural story, it felt very much like the plot was explained for the audience which I hate. It wasn’t a natural story; it felt very much like the plot was explained for the audience, which I hate. I wasn’t just watching these events unfold, every minor detail was explained through unnecessary and awkward character dialogue.
• I hate how political this movie was. In turbulent times such as we are in, the last thing I want to do is watch a fun movie that is infiltrated with political aspects. It is not political in a way that offers important takes or brings attention to societal injustices, but in a way that makes a fun Christmas movie into a mundane following of a mayoral campaign competing for donors and voters. By the end of this 102 minute movie, I was tired of having to listen to old, rich, white people, which we quite frankly have to do enough in real life.
• The big fight scene with Sloane and Harper is horrendous. I think the situation of being outed while in the closet is one of the biggest gay nightmares, and I feel like this movie did not bring the emotion needed to convey that.
• Following that note, I would love to see an LGBTQ+ movie without any suffering. A typical cisnormative and heteronormative holiday movie would not be this serious in incorporating trauma into the plot. It makes me question who this movie wanted as their target audience.

The Ugly:

• Stop talking about Abby’s parents! I feel like if someone’s parents die then you probably don’t want to keep mentioning it to them, especially around the holiday season. The death of Abby’s parents is mentioned at least 10 times (I counted), and using “orphan” as a punch line is just awful.
• This movie is EXTREMELY white, upper class, and binary. The complex and intersectional lives that I often see in the community are not reflected in the movie. The main characters are all cis and the only LGBTQ+ identities represented are gay and lesbian. As a bisexual woman, I was disappointed (especially with bicons Kristen Stewart and Aubrey Plaza in the cast!) The characters were written to conform to heteronormativity and quite simply disappointed me as a queer viewer hoping to see more diverse, lively, and explicitly LGBTQ+ culture represented.

For a movie advertised as the gay movie of the holiday season, I feel like there was a lot that it was lacking. I love rom-coms and happy holiday movies, but this was disappointing. Every character felt very hollow, especially the scenes with relationships that should have been deep and heartfelt. I think this is a first step for more LGBTQ+ representation in the hetero-dominated film industry, but there is a lot of work to be done.

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