Best Wishes, Happiest Endings
In consideration of expectations, cynicism, and hope for the future of mainstream queer film, based on Clea Duvall’s unexpectedly polarizing HAPPIEST SEASON. (Spoilers ahead.)
Do we deserve a soft epilogue, my love?* With regards to the ending of Clea DuVall’s highly anticipated holigay film Happiest Season, the general consensus appears to be “no.”
My original plan for this post was to write about queer film happy endings in general, but Happiest Season ended up being so very divisive, it warranted its own write-up. Viewers who went in expecting a fluffy holiday rom-com may not really feel like trying to parse intention out of the very loaded film they were ultimately presented with, which is fair. I’m going to give it a shot though, because the responses have been a reminder that we queers, starved to see ourselves in media, are also the harshest critics of any stories trying to capture any facet of our widely varied experiences. Happiest Season is a commendable effort by Duvall and co-writer Mary Holland to cover a lot of ground and explore a lot of dynamics while also delivering on the genre, but it does leave us with some very low lows to reconcile with the highs by the time we reach the resolution. This movie was never going to be for everyone, but we’re still in a place and time where the fact that it was made and released at all means something. Maybe that big present we wanted wasn’t under the tree, but let’s not forget to check our stockings.
So to start, who are our main characters? Okay, but really, who are they? We know Harper (Mackenzie Davis) is a writer. We know she loves Christmas, and that she’s the kind of person who would scale some scaffolding to get a romantic view of the decorated neighborhood. Abby (Kristen Stewart) studies art history at Carnegie Mellon. She doesn’t like Christmas. Her parents are dead, which ties into her apprehension about celebrating Christmas, but is mostly used for an ongoing bit that only really pays off once, when she introduces herself to Riley (Aubrey Plaza) as “Harper’s orphan.” The first year of their relationship is played out in the artistically rendered opening credits, which are really lovely, and very much in the spirit of a Christmas rom-com. Unfortunately, it’s not an effective way to tell us anything truly substantial about their dynamic, and this becomes a problem almost immediately. Like, basic-premise immediately.
The idea that a woman would bring her partner home for the holidays and only tell her that she’s not out to her family when they’re already on their way to see them was loaded with the potential for peril from the start. There was a lot of shock in response to the tone of the movie being harsher and more dramatic than expected, a reaction I found I couldn’t relate to. Something had to be seriously off for them to get to that point, and I would expect a queer filmmaker to take seriously the implications of the kind of upbringing Harper had, as well as the unshakable anxiety around coming out, even in the best of situations. Things do get intense, and it is difficult to watch Harper become defensive when Abby checks in with her after she’s been out all night with her high school boyfriend, or the blowout fight scene where Harper’s sister Sloane (Alison Brie) tries to out her at the white elephant party. It’s both important to take care of ourselves when a story hits close to home, and not unreasonable to have expected a very rocky path to this movie’s inevitable happy ending.
I say “inevitable” not because the sequence of events necessarily and unquestionably add up to an Abby/Harper happily-ever-after, but because the movie’s advertising made it very clear that that’s what we were getting. We deserve to know that characters who love like us get to be happy, and we also deserve well-told stories about a variety of queer experiences. But it’s often that happy ending that a lot of focus and pressure is placed on, without acknowledging the many different things that could happen to get to that ending, and that there are many, many ways to end a story happily. I’ve been thinking a lot about happy endings as the primary criterion for a “good” queer movie since May, which is when Netflix released The Half of It (spoilers ahead).
The Half of It, Alice Wu’s first feature since Saving Face, is a coming of age film about a girl who is hired by a boy to write love letters for him to the girl they both like, and the bonds that are forged between all three of them as a result. Everything about this movie worked for me. The three main characters and the intersections of their lives are so lovingly crafted, and everything feels real and meaningful. Of course, not everyone shares my sentiment. Some said that the movie suffered from an unhappy, or somehow not-queer-enough ending.
Going into it knowing that criticism actually had the funny effect of making Ellie and Aster’s kiss in their final scene together a complete and pleasant surprise to me. No, they don’t end up together. But the two of them and Paul all end the movie on paths to bigger aspirations. There’s even a tease of hope that maybe in a few years, Ellie and Aster will reconnect. I can’t think of a happier and more fitting ending to this beautiful movie. And I hate to even have to say this, but a story about a queer character doesn’t lose its queerness just because she doesn’t get the girl, or because it doesn’t reflect every individual experience. The final kiss was generous, as is Wu’s way with endings. She has remarked in interviews how funny it is that some found The Half of It not happy enough, because she’d received the exact opposite criticism about Saving Face, which has a much more rom-com-style happily ever after.
I can’t help but wonder if audiences in general knew all along that happy endings only really work when earned, or if the pretty bow on the messily wrapped package that was Happiest Season really made that clear to a lot of people for the first time. I can’t help but wonder if The Half of It would have gotten less of the criticism it did, had it come out after we’d already reckoned with Abby and Harper ending up together after everything they went through. And I can’t help but wonder about other factors, like The Half of It having women of color on both sides of the camera (and Wu being gay herself), and how white audiences seemed to forget to take that into account. These are all real things to consider, but I also think a lot about Wu’s response to the popular criticism. In one of the many Zoom Q&As I watched following the movie’s release, she said that the positive thing about that kind of feedback is that it shows that people want something.
The wanting and seeking and striving for better is important, but it’s also worth noting what things work in a queer film that gets the kind of platform that Happiest Season did. Even if it was anticipation rather than ultimate opinion that drove the film’s record-breaking viewership on Hulu, a lot of people did enjoy this movie, or enjoyed parts of it, or recognized its potential. It seems widely agreed upon that the film’s greatest strengths were its side characters–specifically Harper’s ex-girlfriend Riley, Abby’s best friend John (Dan Levy), and Harper’s sister Jane (Mary Holland).
Both Jane and Sloane are essential to bring the effects of the emotionally abusive upbringing of the Caldwell sisters into full focus. We love Jane, and rightfully so–Holland’s performance is nerdy, earnest, comedic relief. But she’s more than that, both as a person and in terms of what she represents in the movie. In the context of all three sisters–with their different lives, passions, and flaws, and showing the difference between what happens when they repress their true selves and when they own the things about themselves that go against the grain of family–Jane makes me reconsider the notion that this film simply gives Harper a pass for her bad behavior. Think of Happiest Season, for a moment, as a horror movie. The family home is a haunted house, and its toxicity seeps in the longer they’re there. As DuVall put it, in an interview with Variety, “As soon as they get to the house, [Harper] begins to regress little by little, and slip back into that old family dynamic.” And while Jane may not be in the clutches of the house itself, she suffers from everyone else’s regression, and so does Abby once she’s been brought into it. Jane is the proof that they don’t have to live like this, that it’s a choice to let the toxicity leach into their lives outside the family. It takes Jane and Abby standing up for themselves, finally saying no to the behavior of this family that has gone unchecked for so long, for the the spell to begin to break.
Of course, there is no spell, no magical element other than the general spirit of Christmas to get us to forgive this messed up, white, wealthy, vaguely conservative family for the damage they’ve inflicted. Quite frankly, it’s not the kind of redemption I think many of us our interested at this point in time. But Jane gives us someone to root for consistently in the Caldwell family, and even if little else brought you joy in this movie, we’ll always have Jane finally being seen and getting her book published.
Another spark of joy–because when is he not?–is Dan Levy as Abby’s best friend John. Don’t ask John to watch your pets, but you can count on him to tell it like it is, get a good book published, and track your phone in order to rescue you when your trip to your girlfriend’s parents’ house turns into gay Get Out. John’s speech to Abby, about how Harper’s fear of coming out is not a reflection of how much she loves Abby, and how coming out can signify a major shift even in the best of scenarios, does a lot of the heavy lifting to try to get us to a point of, if not forgiving, at least understanding Harper. This conversation kicks off one of the strongest points of the film, and it almost takes a really subversive turn when Abby hears John out, and still comes to the difficult decision that she wants to be with someone who can be open about their relationship. I acknowledge that Harper treated Abby terribly, and still, my heart broke for her when, after she finally tells her truth, she says to Abby, pleadingly, “I did it.” Because it really is too late, and Abby says as much. But we knew from the start that this would end in reconciliation, no matter how badly some may have wanted Abby to leave and find love with someone else.
I am, of course, referring to Riley, the third member of the Happiest Season fan-favorite trio. Aubrey Plaza comes in as Harper’s ex, looking hot, clocking Abby immediately, being delightfully dry, and doing exactly what she needs to do for Abby, and for the film. Like with John, every Riley appearance provides respite, both for Abby and for queer audiences. So I get it. I get the interest in swapping out Harper for Riley as Abby’s love interest. But let’s be honest–there’s really not much there other than Riley being the only other queer woman Abby encounters in this movie. “We’re gay and have been hurt by the same woman” is solidarity Abby desperately needs, but it doesn’t really seem like a sturdy foundation to run away together on. Remember, whether we like it or not, Abby was ready to marry Harper. I think the only scenario in which Abby jumps into something with Riley is one where she had a foot out the door prior to going home with Harper for the holidays. I also contend that if we want more for ourselves as queer viewers, we should want more for Abby, and certainly more for Riley, than to just thrust the two of them together and call it a happier ending for the film. That said, Abby/Riley is the kind of pairing built for fanfiction. Fans of various media have certainly shipped two characters (usually white men, so hey, maybe this is progress) with less to go on.
The thing that I feel gets lost among the dislike of Harper and the love for so many of the side characters is the fact that Harper really doesn’t have anyone in her corner. John and Riley are two of the movies great successes, not just because Levy and Plaza are funny and easy on the eyes, but because they’re queer buoys keeping Abby afloat in the choppy sea of this movie’s plot. But no one is taking Harper to a drag show. There’s no gay aunt to be an ally in that toxic house, Harper’s friends are none the wiser, and wouldn’t the ex-boyfriend have been so much more interesting if he’d been a little more aware, or queer himself? It makes sense that we would struggle to sympathize with Harper when, for most of the runtime, no one inside the movie does either. She really needed someone, anyone who’s not Abby, to sit her down and say, “Girl, what are you doing?” But maybe that’s the point. A lot of Happiest Season revolves around what happens when the support you need is not accessible to you, whether it’s because love from your family is conditional, or because you’re disconnected from your community.
I think that even just a little more time and space may have allowed Abby and Harper to better earn their happily ever after. Maybe they meet on New Years Eve at the spot where they kissed the previous year, or maybe they reunite at Jane’s book event the following year, both having grown and healed, both ready to try again. Or maybe after all is said and done, we chalk a bit of the hastiness up to genre conventions, and believe in a fictional world where all is solved and forgiven by Christmas morning.
Criticism is good and necessary. What I’m not interested in is loud and broad cynicism. When I read things like “what a shame that the best part of this lesbian rom-com was a man,” (as if Levy’s character was just some dude that got all the funny lines), instead of, for example, “one of the notable strengths in an otherwise uneven film was the friendship between a queer woman and a queer man,” I wonder if we’re not just delighting in negativity a bit too much.
The impulse to compare similar stories is also a tricky thing. I’ve already done it here with The Half of It, and as a big Schitt’s Creek fan, another specific comparison that’s easy to draw is with the episode “Meet the Parents.” In this episode, Levy’s character David learns belatedly that his boyfriend Patrick has not come out to his parents, who he’s just invited to Patrick’s surprise birthday party. It’s a beloved, critically acclaimed piece of television, and arguably, it’s a more satisfying coming out story. It also has the benefits of having established the central relationship over two seasons, and never actually showing us Patrick lying or dancing around the fact that he hasn’t told his parents, whereas Abby and Harper’s relationship lacks onscreen development, and we very much get to experience Harper at her worst as her lies spiral out of control. Schitt’s Creek has been lauded for giving us a place where homophobia doesn’t exist, and as huge as that is, it isn’t fair to hold a piece of filmmaking that is reckoning with the realities of implicit and internalized homophobia up to that as the standard. Levy is right there in both the show and the movie to remind us that coming out is a deeply personal experience, and everyone’s story is different.
Maybe things would have played out differently if Happiest Season had been a limited series, with more time to develop the characters. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s more important to remember that there’s plenty of room for queer filmmakers to tell a variety of stories, including the uncomfortable ones. At the end of the day, Clea DuVall is one filmmaker who told one set of stories in this one film. We can want something other than what we got, and we can wonder about what might have been cut, either for creative or commercial reasons, but by all accounts, DuVall did what she set out to do with this story and in this genre. Regarding the ending, she confirmed in an interview with The A.V. Club that a happy ending for the movie’s leads was always in the cards. I’ve always appreciated a film that ends with a relationship ending for the better of the characters. I also appreciate that that’s not the story DuVall aimed to tell:
“The best case scenario in a lot of gay romances is that the people fall in love, they have this incredible experience, and then they never see each other again,” she told The A.V. Club. “And to give an LGBTQ+ audience a big, bright happy ending was really important to us.”
Also from her Variety interview, she gets into the struggles regarding Harper. From her responses, and from her 2016 debut feature The Intervention, I get the sense that she’s interested in exploring complicated relationships, and pushing emotional limits. The Intervention also features a central, deteriorating relationship that is difficult to root for. The couple’s friend’s stage the titular intervention to convince them it’s time to call it quits. I imagine the resolution of this movie didn’t sit well with all audiences either–I definitely had mixed feelings. But if the Noah Baumbachs of the world get to make their relationship disaster films, I’d say queer women should definitely get to tell messy relationship stories too (especially when such a big facet of queer humor is reveling in our own dating cliches). I recommend reading DuVall’s Variety interview in its entirety, but the part that felt particularly illuminating was her response to being asked if she was aware that people wanted Abby to run away with Riley:
“I think that has less to do with the movie and more to do with your philosophy on growth and forgiveness. Writing this movie from the perspective of a 43-year-old woman who has not always been my best self — it was a long, windy, messy road to get to the person I am now. I’m very proud of the person I am now, but I haven’t always been that person. It’s understanding that sometimes you have to go low so you can figure out your way back up. And I understand the impulse to just cut and run, and be like, to hell with this. But I also really believe that people can get better, people can grow, and people can change.”
I’m more or less ready to shelve Happiest Season until the next holiday season, at which time I’m already planning to rewatch it in a double-feature with The Family Stone, just to really put myself through it. That said, I’d be happy to further discuss the following:
Mackenzie Davis’s talent for playing complicated characters (aka I’m dying to rewatch Halt and Catch Fire now, who wants to Netflix Party it with me?)
What could have been if Jes Tom or another trans/nonbinary/butch actor had been cast as Riley
The hilarious juxtaposition of the cozy, neon-lit queer bar, and the aggressively heterosexual sports bar
Lauren Lapkus and Timothy Simons: Mall Cops
The criminal underuse of Michelle Buteau, who is funnier than most of us could ever dream of being and surely deserves several leading roles by now
Otherwise, my hope is just that stakeholders take viewership and critical response into consideration together, and understand that it’s not that we didn’t want this film, it’s that we want more, and we want different. That’s what we’ve been wanting, what many of us wanted from this film, and what we continue to want. I’m excited to see what comes next, hopefully with more queer and trans POC on both sides of the camera, through the paths that are being cleared by movies like this one.
In This Post - Where to Watch:
Happiest Season (2020) - Hulu
The Half of It (2020) - Netflix
The Intervention (2016) - Crackle
*Opening sentence paraphrased from a Captain America fan poem–iykyk.
**More gay poetry, this time borrowed and genderswapped from Richard Siken’s “You Are Jeff.”