Happiest Season gave me a lot of mixed emotions, and not all of them good. For a big part of the movie it was just frustrating to me, watching a rather toxic family and relationship be milked for laughs. But then there would be these moments when there would be something quite moving, something that felt quite insightful. But the movie ended up disappointing me by playing through to an ending that it didn't earn and frankly lets us all down.
Happiest Season plays on the TV Christmas movie tropes we're all familiar with so I was willing to give it a pass on some of its cheese factor. But the rom-com formula was faltering as the closeted plot just didn't feel like something to be laughing at, at least not in the way the film was presenting it. There just weren't enough laughs, and they weren't crafted in a way that felt overly funny. If anything it felt sad, not funny. And while melancholy and tristesse can be sources of deep humour, Happiest Season wasn't getting there with its holiday film sensibilities.
But also star Kristen Stewart wasn't pulling off the comedy aspect. She looks unhappy to be here the whole time. Co-star Mary Holland keeps trying to pull the rest of the cast into the comedy she's in but the rest of them (even Dan Levy who shockingly only has a few funny moments) just don't want to play along. The laughs are just not that common or strong.
But it's the WASPy cruelty of the family that just keeps hitting you as you watch Happiest Season. I just kept getting angry at them and I didn't want the kind of happily ever after ending I knew the film was careening towards. I hoped, deep down, Stewart's character would leave for a a better relationship, a better life. They even tease us with Plaza's character being available to sweep Stewart away from the madness, although she never does, or Levy coming to support her and offer her a queer chosen family to be far superior to the biological one she is thrust into. But I knew, deep down, the film would redeem the rest of them and that it would be, well... disappointing. And when the film makes its attempt to redeem this family, it does so quickly, like it's running out of time. So it never feels real or honest. It just feels like all the characters change suddenly and we're supposed to forgive them all.
But
There are moments. There is a sequence where the film compares this small town's gay bar, with their fabulous drag queens and communal spirit, with a yuppie straight lounge that feels pretentious and phony. The film's subtle ways of expressing those feelings and contrasting them was quite impressive. Later there is a moment Levy has where he touches on some insightful commonalities of the queer experience and it was quite moving. But these moments come and they go and the film returns to a formula that just doesn't feel authentic.
So as the film reached its rather disappointing finale, I wished that it could have had a more affirming climax, one that had Stewart's Abby take no BS and march herself back to Pittsburgh into the arms of a beautiful proud out Lesbian who had all of her shit together.
Happiest Season
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Dan Levy, Mary Steenburgen, Victor Garber, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Holland
Director: Clea DuVall
Writers: Mary Holland, Clea DuVall
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