Diandra Reviews It All-Hulu's Happiest Season Adds Warmth To 2020

Watching Happiest Season, out November 26 on Hulu, I kept on thinking of holiday rom-coms from the 2000s, like Meet The Fockers and Four Christmases, where a happy couple is trying to maintain their joy in the face of an overbearing family. Happiest Season adds an emotional layer to its laughs and mishaps through a very serious and tragic conundrum: how do you impress the parents of your girlfriend, when they can’t even know you want to spend the rest of your life with her, because she is terrified to come out to them?

Comedy is meant to laugh at tragedy, and the latter issue is very real for many LGBTQIA members, but writer- director Clea Duvall uses this reality to create hilarious hi-jinks and a very nuance look at the fear behind “coming out.” While most wish for the day when no one has to announce, “MOM! I’M A LESBIAN!” and then have an “Are you sure?” discussion, we, as a society, are not fully there. As proof of this, Mackenzie Davis’ Harper will be the key “love-hate” character you will follow in the film. She is a grown, successful woman who feels like a little girl doing something “wrong” and putting “unnecessary shame” on her family for loving a woman. While she is the happiest she has ever been with her beloved Abby (Kristen Stewart), something about seeing her mom (Mary Steenburgen as Tipper) and dad (Victor Garber as Ted) disappointed guts her into silence. Hence, you want to shake her into courage so we can bask in the chemistry between her and Abby, while also hold her because, frankly, it sucks to feel like a grown kid.

Happiest Season – Trailer (Official) * A Hulu Original

No matter how old we get, our parents say our full name and we want to run into our childhood bedrooms and hide behind our stuffed animals until they announce what mistake we did. Our parents will always have a “child-like” hold over us, and the holiday season totally brings that out in Harper and her sisters. Alison Brie kills it as Sloane: the prissy, uptight sister whose bitterness stems from being so “perfect” yet never enough compared too Harper. Meanwhile, Mary Holland’s Jane is so sweet, jovial, and absolutely chewed up by her family’s obsession with looking good over actually feeling it. Harper’s parents are esteemed, aloof, fabulous, and kind of cold to their own children’s needs, which explains why Abby feels like such a hidden comfort for her.

Stewart feels refreshing, relatable, and cool as Abby. Similar to her role in Charlie’s Angels, I am really loving Stewart’s range and expansion into characters that are happier, more comedic, and fun to watch. Don’t get me wrong! Seeing Twilight’s Bella twitch and tussle her hair for 120 minutes, while surrounded by wolves and vamps, felt like an acting class on how to physicalize a character, but it made Stewart feel bound to YA and more depressing, serious roles. In essence, she does light-hearted really well and her scenes with Dan Levy’s John and Aubrey Plaza’s Riley were my favorites. The latter two are always funny and detailed in their deliveries of comedic characters. You can give a laugh and wisdom, all at once. They are not juxtaposed, and Plaza’s Riley, in particular, is proof of that. Plaza is so charming that, for a moment, I pulled for her and Abby.

‘Happiest Season’ Celebrates More Than Just The Holidays

At the end of the day, Happiest Season stands out amongst holiday rom-coms because it is a love story about being bold enough to declare your love and the patience it takes to gain that courage. Abby is in way over head and has the mini-misadventures to prove it as, again, she tries to impress a family that wonders why Harper brought her “friend” for Christmas. Yet, she sticks out while Harper finds the strength to own her love for herself, for her family, and, eventually, for Abby.