Happiest Season (2020)

Happiest Season arrived on Hulu in November 2020 and did something no major studio Christmas movie had done before: it put a queer couple at the center of a holiday rom-com without treating their queerness as the punchline. Directed by Clea DuVall, who co-wrote the script with Mary Holland, the film follows Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis) as they head to Harper's family home for Christmas. There's just one problem. Harper hasn't told her parents she's gay, and she asks Abby to pretend they're roommates for the duration of the visit.

That's a premise with real teeth, even if the movie sometimes files them down.

Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, and a Stacked Cast

Stewart plays Abby as someone who is quietly furious and trying very hard not to show it. It's a restrained performance that works precisely because Stewart has never been a broad comedian. She sells the discomfort of being erased in real time, forced to sleep in a separate bedroom and introduced as a friend to everyone who matters. You believe that Abby loves Harper enough to endure this, even as you want to shake her for agreeing to it.

Mackenzie Davis has the harder role. Harper is, frankly, not always likable. She lies compulsively, panics at every turn, and at one point essentially throws Abby under the bus to protect her own secret. Davis makes you understand the why without letting Harper off the hook for the what. That's a tricky needle to thread in a holiday movie, where audiences expect warmth above all else.

The supporting cast is where Happiest Season really flexes. Dan Levy steals the film as Abby's best friend John, delivering a monologue about coming out that became one of the most-discussed movie scenes of 2020. Aubrey Plaza shows up as Harper's ex-girlfriend Riley and, in about fifteen minutes of screen time, creates a character so appealing that a significant portion of the audience wished Abby would just date her instead. Mary Steenburgen and Victor Garber play the uptight parents with enough specificity to avoid caricature. Alison Brie is genuinely unhinged as Harper's competitive sister Sloane, who treats Christmas like a contact sport.

Christmas as Performance

What makes Happiest Season work as a Christmas movie, rather than a movie that just happens during Christmas, is how it uses the holiday itself. The Caldwell family doesn't just celebrate Christmas. They weaponize it. Every decoration, every dinner, every outfit is calibrated to project an image of perfection. Harper's father is running for mayor, and the family Christmas party is essentially a campaign event with eggnog.

The film understands something true about Christmas gatherings: they amplify whatever dysfunction already exists in a family. The pressure to perform happiness, to maintain appearances, to play the role your parents assigned you years ago. That's not a queer-specific experience, which is part of why the movie resonated so widely.

DuVall fills the frame with Christmas details that serve double duty. The Caldwell house is decorated within an inch of its life, every surface groaning under garlands and lights, and all of it feels like staging rather than celebration. When Abby and Riley share a quiet conversation at a bar away from the house, it's the first time the holiday feels warm rather than suffocating.

Where It Falls Short

The third act is where Happiest Season stumbles. The film accelerates into a series of confrontations and revelations that feel rushed after the slow-build tension of the first hour. Harper's outing happens at the worst possible moment (the Christmas party, naturally), and the reconciliation that follows moves at sitcom speed. After spending 80 minutes showing how deep the damage runs, the movie wraps things up in about ten.

There's also the Harper problem. The script asks you to root for Abby and Harper as a couple, but Harper's behavior is so consistently hurtful that the happy ending requires a leap of faith the film hasn't fully earned. DuVall, who is openly gay and drew on personal experience, has spoken about wanting to show the complexity of coming out rather than simplifying it. That ambition is admirable. But in the final minutes, the film simplifies anyway.

Still, the movie got the most important thing right. It exists. Before 2020, if you wanted to watch a Christmas rom-com about a queer couple with A-list stars and a real budget, your options were exactly zero. Happiest Season didn't need to be perfect. It needed to be first, and it was.