Mark Reviews Movies: HAPPIEST SEASON

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 24, 2020

Here's a very funny, quite generous comedy that's also filled with a lot of pain. Happiest Season plays like a farce, a comedy of errors about a disastrous meeting-the-parents scenario, but co-writer/director Clea DuVall skillfully juggles the film's tone in such a way that its real point—about the destructive nature of lies people live with and tell others in order to keep things "normal"—hits hard.

We don't quite see the turn coming, which is part of the film's impact. To call the premise and initially silly tone distractions wouldn't be accurate, because DuVall and co-screenwriter Mary Holland fully embrace the gag of the setup and the quirkiness of its assorted characters. By the time the story arrives at its more serious point, though, we fully buy into it, too, because these characters have so endeared themselves to us through the comedy.

The basic setup involves Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis), who have been dating for about a year as Christmas approaches. Abby isn't into the holiday season. Her parents, who really were into it, died when she was 19, so it's not exactly the most wonderful time of the year for her. Harper is a fan of the season, and she wants the woman she loves to have that sensation of Christmas joy again.

Why doesn't Abby come with Harper to her family's big Christmas event? What could possibly go wrong?

Well, as Harper reveals as the couple is already on the road to the family's house, a lot could. Harper hasn't told her parents that she and Abby are dating. In fact, she has never gotten around to telling her parents that she's gay.

She asks Abby to keep their relationship a secret while they're at the house, with the promise that Harper will finally be honest with her family once the holidays are finished. Abby agrees, although it certainly ruins her plans to propose to Harper on Christmas morning.

From there, the film becomes a full-on farce, complete with eccentric characters, plenty of misunderstandings, and even some close-call gags involving doors and bedroom escapades. It's everything we expect from such material.

The most notable element is how all of these characters, strange and amusing in a variety of ways, gel in such a way that we simultaneously laugh and get a solid understanding of the family dynamics at play. Abby meets Harper's parents Tipper (Mary Steenburgen), who's more than a bit of a controlling presence in the house (Every little thing is a major crisis for her), and Ted (Victor Garber), a local city council member who's running for mayor on a platform of some pretty conservative platitudes. Harper introduces Abby as her roommate. The family constantly refers to her as some variation of "the orphan."

Harper's older sister is Jane (Holland), an odd one—to say the least—who always seems to be vying for attention and running on the terrified energy that she's going to be left out (She also has been working on a fantasy novel for 10 years, although the parents treat her as technical support around the house). The eldest sibling is Sloane (Alison Brie), formerly a successful lawyer who quit to raise her children and make custom gift baskets ("It's great," Tipper says, with such unconvincingly fake positivity that we can't tell if she's trying to sound sincere or being intentionally sarcastic). She arrives with her husband (played by Burl Moseley) and the couple's twins—all of them quietly severe (In a great throwaway joke, the kids are looking forward to Santa gifting them the collected works of Sylvia Plath).

These are funny characters, played with straight-faced conviction by the cast, and the humor primarily comes from seeing how each of them interacts with all the others—the clashing personalities, the fights for attention, the constant attempts to one-up each other. It's a competitive family, and poor Abby, just trying to make a good impression, has to sit back and stay out of the way. She can confide in her friend John (Dan Levy), who offers what support he can over the phone—while also dealing with the fact that he accidentally let Abby's fish die.

For all this humor, though, there is a certain sadness just beneath the surface, gradually revealing itself more and more as Harper's refusal to be honest with her family drives a wedge between her and Abby. Harper's first girlfriend Riley (Aubrey Plaza) offers Abby some insight about Harper's past denials and the emotional fallout for her. Another ex, a guy named Connor (Jake McDorman), is often around, too, first through Tipper's arrangement and then by Harper's own decision. Abby, who was so convinced she knew Harper, finds it difficult to recognize the woman she loves in this person in this situation.

The pain of the story is in this familial dynamic, how all of this pressure to be or, at least, appear "perfect" has transformed Harper and her sisters into shells of who they really are. The generosity of the film is in how DuVall presents these characters without judgment and with considerable sympathy.

Happiest Season is still funny, though. That point has to be made again, because it's easy to forget, considering how well DuVall and Holland shift this story toward more serious matters of the heart, expectations, identity, and self-acceptance in the third act. Ultimately, the film is, thankfully, a comedy, but its attention to these characters and honesty about the situation at hand certainly make us believe it could go in an entirely different direction. That's an accomplishment.

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