HAPPIEST SEASON (2020) FILM REVIEW

***

12A, 101 Mins

Kristen Stewart and MacKenzie Davis have lovely chemistry in this nice Christmas LGBT rom-com.

Here’s a late festive treat for you. ‘Happiest Season’ (2020) boasts lovely performances and chemistry from Kristen Stewart and MacKenzie Davis as a lesbian couple trying to hide their relationship from the latter’s parents at Christmas. This movie is one to uplift the soul and hit home that watching ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ (1946) can really change your life.

Abby (Stewart) and Harper (Davis) have been dating for nearly a year. Abby is the butch side to the relationship with punk rock, peroxide blonde hair while Harper is tall, lanky and the femme of the couple. Abby has always disliked Christmas since her parents passed away so Harper sees this as the perfect opportunity to introduce Abby to her conservative parents (Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen) at her hometown.

Abby hopes to propose to Harper on Christmas morning. However, on the way to Harper’s Caldwell family’s house, Harper lets out that she lied to Abby about coming out to her parents under the fear that it would interfere with her father Ted (Garber) running for Mayor. Harper doesn’t want to come out to her family until after Christmas and asks Abby to play the role of her straight roommate for the holidays. Abby reluctantly agrees…

Kristen Stewart is really good as the butch, punky Abby. I’ve had a bit of a troubled history when it comes to my relationship with this actress. I hated the ‘Twilight’ movies (2008-2012), for example, and always found Kristen has a really annoying habit of biting her bottom lip and looking miserable. She doesn’t do much lip-biting here, but interestingly her moody, miserable persona is put to good effect when playing up the butch side of the relationship.

Meanwhile MacKenzie Davis, who was last seen sticking her arm up a Cow’s arse in the awful political satire ‘Irresistible’ (2020) and was pretty badass in the otherwise empty ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ (2019), is pretty and cute in the femme role of the relationship. Davis and Stewart have two lovely scenes together. One when they exchange foreplay (though no sex!) and the other when they smile at each other while watching ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ (1946) at the cinema.

This film really taps into the anxiety shared by gay people over hiding their sexuality from their parents. There’s a moving scene where Harper confesses how hard it is to hide their relationship to Abby and the conversation that follows includes the lines: “you not telling your parents is a choice that you made”, “do you know how painful it is to watch the person that I love choose to hide me?”, “I’m not hiding you. I’m hiding me”, “they’re my parents and I’m scared that if I tell them who I really am, I will lose you” and “I don’t want to lose you”.

It’s a shame the roles of the conservative parents are underwritten. The film criminally wastes the immense talent of Victor Garber as dad Ted. Garber is such a fabulously crinkly-eyed and nosed presence and it’s great to see Mr. Andrews from ‘Titanic’ (1997) back on screen, even in a small role.

I watched ‘Happiest Season’ nearly a week after watching Viggo Mortensen’s ‘Falling’ (2020). That was another drama about the relationship between conservative parents and their gay children. In that film, Lance Henriksen’s gung-ho dad spent his lifetime rejecting the fact that his son was gay. Harper’s parents’ reaction to their daughter coming out here is a much more positive experience and I confess to having shed a few tears when the truth was finally revealed in the living room.

The movie ends with Harper, Abby and the united family sitting in a cinema at Christmas watching ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’. This film really proves that film’s power to uplift the soul and put you in the Christmas spirit. I certainly felt more Christmassy watching both ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ and ‘Happiest Season’ this festive season.

‘Happiest Season’ is on multiple platforms now.
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