REVIEW: Kristen Stewart, Dan Levy & Aubrey Plaza Shine in “Happiest Season”
The Holiday season is a time for families to come together and celebrate being with the ones they love. In Clea DuVall’s Happiest Season, viewers watch as Abby (Kristen Stewart) joins her girlfriend, Harper (Mackenzie Davis) for Christmas at Harper’s home. However, there is one major catch. Harper’s family does not know that Abby is Harper’s girlfriend nor do they know that Harper is a lesbian. Now, Abby must navigate the holiday season as Harper’s roommate if she hopes to keep Harper’s secret and spend the holidays with the woman she loves.
At the center of the movie is Harper’s (Davis) fear of coming out to her parents. For years, Harper has been the apple of her parents’ eyes and with that comes the fear that if she tells them she’s a lesbian, her parents feelings toward her will change. However, the story gets lost in the ridiculousness that is Harper and her sisters, Jane (Holland) and Sloane (Brie). Sloane and Harper are very unlikeable while poor Jane just becomes the butt of every joke for no apparent reason, except for the fact that she is eccentric. Add in the fact, that Harper makes some pretty questionable decisions throughout the film, you can’t help but lose hope for the Caldwell family. As the film progress, I couldn’t help but hope that she and Abby wouldn’t end up together in the end because Abby deserved better.
DuVall’s story has all the makings of being a great holiday classic, but the story falls flat. Many of the tropes found in your typical romantic comedy holiday flick are there, but the unlikability of Harper and her family makes it hard to find any joy in the flick. The characters are pretty terrible and the way they treat Abby throughout, along with Jane, makes it hard to understand how Abby didn’t walk out on Day 1 of the trip. There is also no real explanation for why the characters are so terrible nor is there an explanation for why the characters are the way they are, expect for the fact that they had to compete for their parents’ love growing up. At the end of the day, the reasoning falls flat.
Stewart, Dan Levy and Aubrey Plaza are honestly the best parts of the movie. Levy, who plays Abby’s best friend John, has such wonderful comedic timing and manages to shine in every scene he is in. Stewart, on the other hand, is a joy to watch on screen. Seeing as this is one of her first romantic comedies, Stewart played Abby with such natural ease. Plaza plays Riley, Harper’s first girlfriend, and at the end of the day she and Stewart have far more chemistry than Stewart’s Abby and Davis’ Harper. This is the reason for why I was kind of hoping those two would end up together, even though I knew they wouldn’t.
Happiest Season is a fresh take on a Holiday movie, but I was left shaking my head at a number of scenes. I kind of wish they had left out some of the ridiculousness, so I could of really appreciated the heartfelt story.
Grade: B-