T&K's XMas (2020) Advent Calendar: Day 9 - Happiest Season

2020, d. Clea DuVall - rental

 Disclaimer: as a straight, cis male I can't 100% relate to issues of the closet, but hopefully my empathy is enough to prevent any insensitive commentary herein. 

With a well-stacked cast of some of my favourite and/or very well-liked (and, one or two not-so-favourite) on-screen personalities, I had very, very high hopes for a delightful Christmas romantic comedy with a lesbian love story at the center.  It's not something the mainstream has done before, to my knowledge, and while COVID has prevented its release in theatres, it's probably best that Happiest Season succeeds (or fails) as a result of social media conversation, rather than what the box office numbers say.  I would like to think this would have been a big financial success, spurring on more diversity in the mainstream box office, but the counter is also true, a box office bomb would set back such diversity for years to come.

The reaction to Happiest Season so far has been divisive, and watching the film I understand why.  At its center is the traumatic issue of hiding one's sexual identity for fear of losing everyone they love.  I'm sure for many hoping to go into the film finding a funny love story that they can connect with, the deep-rooted trigger of fearfully hiding one's identity would maybe connect too much, and mar any of the levity that surrounds it.

But the problem, from my perspective, is not the subject matter, but the approach the film takes with it.  It's a tonally inconsistent film, one that seemed to have been written as a smaller, more intense drama, but then massaged into shoehorning in some goofy comedy.  The two sides are constantly at odds with one another.  Director Clea DuVall gets the story credit for the film, with screenplay co-written with Mary Holland, who I know primarily as a hilarious improvisational performer from the Comedy Bang-Bang podcast.  While I can only assume at this point, I'm thinking DuVall wrote a very serious script, realized she didn't want the story to be so serious and brought Holland in to lighten it up. 

But it's not just the script, clearly DuVall was still very keen on representing the grounded, painful reality, guiding her actors - with the exception of Holland and Dan Levy - to play their roles without any heightened comedic intent.  As such when the film tries to throw any character beyond Holland or Levy into a comedically charged situation it either falls flat or doesn't escape the emotional weight that surrounds it.  There are some really good laughs in the film, but there should be far more.

[PLOT SPOILERS]

The story starts in Pittsburgh, where Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis) are on a Christmas tour.  Abby expresses that she doesn't much like Christmas anymore, and Harper wants to bring some of that joy back to her... so she invites her to her parents house for Christmas.  Then there's a big, broad comedic pratfall that is both hilarious but already feels, only a few minutes in, disconnected with the tone of the film.

This opening sequence is, simply put, rough.  The chemistry between Stewart and Davis isn't very tight, so when it transitions to the next scene where it's made clear that the two are living together, it seems incongruous because the opening sequence still has that "getting to know you" vibe.  When Davis tries to rescind the offer to Abby, something definitely feels up, and when Abby goes to pick up an engagement ring with bff John (Levy), it just doesn't feel right (John has his own objections but they're not the same as mine).  This feeling of it not being "right" is made even more clear when, in the drive to upstate Pennsylvania (I guess), Harper tells Abby she's still in the closet at home, and that she needs Abby to pretend to be her roommate, not partner.

This is where it all falls apart as a comedy.  Abby is an unwilling participant in this plan.  She asks to go back home but Harper convinces her it will be fine.  But it's not fine.  Not only is Harper denying herself (her choice) but she's asking the person she says she loves to force herself into a position she doesn't want to be in.  This is the turning point of the film and a much different choice could have been made in getting the story here that would have changed the entire picture...but I'll circle back.

Harper's family is a nightmare of repression and expectations.  Harper's father, Ted (not Father Ted, though Victor Garber *might* be able to pull off a North American version of the Irish sitcom), is running for mayor and needs everything, and everyone, to be *perfect*.  His eldest daughter, Sloane (a criminally misused Alison Brie), was their golden child, until she and her husband both quit their prestigious legal careers to raise kids and make Goop-friendly artisanal gift assortments.  Harper was always put into competition with Sloane growing up, a rivalry that persists now that Harper has displaced her as the favourite.  Their other sister, Jane, is high-energy, like a kid spiked up on two cans of Coca Cola for the first time.  She's much, but hilarious.  It's clear she's not part of the sibling rivalry, and her parents treat her like tech support.  While Ted has the expectation of perfection, Harper's mom Tipper (Mary Steenburgen) is the one who sweats over keeping the illusion up.  They're a judgy family and the moment Harper enters their presence she becomes a different person (we'll put a pin in this statement as well...).

Abby is cast aside from the moment she walks in the door of their home, relegated to the basement, put into the awkward chair at dinner, alone and ignored whenever Haper is around family or friends (which is pretty much all the time).  She's trying to make a good impression on everyone, but as Harper's "roommate" she's really of no consequence to them, so any efforts are immediately forgotten.  

Abby is our POV character, and rather than playing up the potential awkward comedy of someone trying to fit in with a new family (albeit with a deeper deception to maintain), it plays the pain she is experiencing very real.  I've seen Stewart on Saturday Night Live, and she's absolutely capable of being fun and entertaining, but she's largely put back into her poker-faced sad eyes that defined her early career and made me largely detest watching her in films.  She is more charismatic now, but this film doesn't take much advantage of it.  We're sympathetic to her, but, as people have pointed out, it's basically a lesbian Get Out situation.

Abby only finds solace in talking with John back home, who is the audience voice of reason, saying everything the audience is thinking, but Abby also defends the woman she loves, and is trying to understand the difficulty Harper is having hiding herself from everyone else around her.  The film keeps trying to remind you these two people love each other, but again, the chemistry just isn't quite there.

When Abby meets Harper's ex, Riley, (the inconceivably awesome Aubrey Plaza) she learns more about Harper's history of being in the closet and the pain she's inflicted upon others she purports to love in doing so.  While Harper repeatedly ignores her, Riley is there in support. Plaza is so charming (and smoking hot) that it's hard to even question why Abby would want to be with Harper - who has mainly been rude and ignorant of her partner's feelings or well being - when Riley is RIGHT. THERE!  

Circling back to the pin I put in when Harper returned home and "became a different person"... this is exactly what happened.  She has fully unflattering habits and patterns that reemerge whenever she's in the presence of the people and surroundings she grew up with.  It's defensive and instinctual, and the film doesn't really allow us into Harper, because Abby is our POV character.  As such Harper is just. plain. awful.  We forget, even as we're frequently reminded, that Abby and Harper have built a life together back in Pittsburgh, and that they genuinely love each other, so throwing that away for the temptation of one Aubrey Plaza is...well, it IS a tough choice but emotionally they're still connected, so on that level I can understand why it works out the way it does.

But it's a damn mess in working that out.  John shows up to Harper's family home to rescue Abby and when things escalate (and boy do they escalate...in a way that should be slapstick but is too weighed down by the performances), they have a little heart to heart.  The speech Levy delivers about the spectrum of coming out provides the lightning rod the film needed, but it's Abby's realization that she can't be with someone who isn't ready to be out that is the necessary moment of reason we were all waiting for.  It's crushingly painful, and yet cathartic. So when, moments later, Harper does come out, and finally says all the things she should have said days (or months or years ago) Abby's reaction is the best moment in the film.  

The problem with making Harper so rude to Abby for almost the whole film is we don't care that they're together.  Because they spend practically the entire movie apart, their dynamic is only what we see, fraught with pain.  Why would anyone want to continue that?

Circling further back to where the film could have made a very crucial choice would have been for Harper to tell Abby about being in the closet at home BEFORE they left Pittsburgh, and giving Abby the CHOICE to put herself back in the closet, and having the conversation about whether she can be with someone in the closet at the start of the film as set up for the realization that she cant at the end of the film.  By giving Abby the choice to go with Harper, and they TOGETHER decide to keep up the ruse, the comedy would hit harder.  Abby's efforts at keeping the ruse up would be comedic, rather than painful, and the time they do spend together would be more romantic.  The general thrust that the ruse wears on Abby, to the point that it does start to hurt her too much can persist but at least the comedy of deception is there in the beginning.  It would take away some of the grounded nature, allowing Davis and Brie to play broader, funnier characters, and exacerbate that competitive pressure into something that's funny until it's not.  

It's great that we have Happiest Season to talk about.  A mainstream holiday lesbian rom com, one that is divisive spurs conversations, raises awareness of different perspectives, and hopefully generates numbers hopefully will entice more lesbian or gay or non-binary rom coms to get made and seen.  It's just too bad that the film couldn't find the right tone to make it less heart wrenching for most of its run time.  There should definitely be a turn to heartbreak, but it shouldn't be floating on the surface, staring us in the face the whole time.  With a livelier comedy, with bigger romantic swings, this would be a holiday classic.  It's just not quite there.