Welcome to my Archer Magazine queer film review!

I rate each film against my rigorous methodology of whether a film is better than Better Than Chocolate, the infamous and questionable 90s lesbian film. You can read my review of that film right here.

For Christmas, it’s only appropriate that I review Happiest Season. 

I originally attended the Melbourne premiere of Happiest Season in 2020 at the Coburg Drive-In, alongside every local lesbian and their Subaru. And I tried to blot it from my memory. Yet somehow I sat through it again, and I can confidently say that it is worse on a re-watch.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t have you all around me with your rescue greyhounds and vegan popcorn. Maybe because I knew what was coming – and it wouldn’t involve Kristen Stewart and Aubrey Plaza scissoring.

Or just maybe because it is a fucking Christmas movie. Nonetheless, I am here to serve with these reviews.

All images: Hulu

So, let’s talk about the plot of Happiest Season.

Kristen Stewart and her girlfriend Harper (played by Mackenzie Davis) are going on a little Christmas lights tour.

K-Stew isn’t into it, but in the heat of a Christmas lights-filled moment, Harper invites K-Stew to her family Chrissy, because K-Stew’s parents have passed away and she’ll be alone for the holidays.

PS: K-Stew’s character does apparently have a name, but that’s not relevant or important. 

Not the scissoring we want.

The next morning, Harper is acting weird.

K-Stew pops out for a little hang with her BFF Dan Levy, whose performance carries this entire film, by the way. We find out that K-Stew is going to propose to Harper, and what follows is an obligatory scene where Dan Levy mocks the heteronormativity of marriage.

I wish they wouldn’t do this. Just do the marriage or don’t – but leave the rest of us out of it.

Also, there are considerable jokes about using apps to track someone’s whereabouts without their consent, and no to this entirely.

The zero-chemistry-lovebirds set sail to Harper’s family’s house, only for Harper to confess during the car ride that she isn’t actually out to her family. Plus, K-Stew has to pretend to be straight. Sigh.

They arrive at Harper’s family’s house, and it is truly every working class queer’s worst nightmare: you’re bobbing along in a perfectly good relationship, and BAM! It turns out the person was secretly very wealthy the whole damn time.

Harper’s family owns a straight-up mansion. Her dad is running for mayor. He’s some Republican politician, and they call him “daddy” when K-Stew is RIGHT there being ACTUAL daddy. Red flag times 1000.

My face when I find out someone has a trust fund.

Harper’s sister Jane arrives shortly after. Her character is so great, but everyone treats her so terribly that it’s uncomfortable to watch.

Their other sister Sloane arrives with her husband and their twins, who are the only three people of colour. The husband has some boring plotline and the children are exceptionally mischievous.

This film is so extremely white, and then has two children of colour as misbehaving side characters with an extremely boring father, which is pretty fucked up.

Harper and Sloane have this tension: they’re constantly trying to fight for their parents’ love. WASP vibes to the extreme.

Next, they do a bunch of rich people stuff.

They’re at some rich person dinner and FINALLY Aubrey Plaza enters. The chemistry between Aubrey and K-Stew is out of this world. Sure, we endure a whole scene of them in a gay bar singing Christmas songs, but no one can be upset to see their two beautiful faces.

I can’t believe Clea Duvall (The director of Happiest Season and queer icon since her 1999 role in But I’m a Cheerleader) did us so damn dirty and we didn’t see them kiss. 

I have a new film idea: K-Stew and Aubrey Plaza spin-off love story. It’s what the people want! Chant it with me!

Correct.

So, while K-Stew and Aubrey Plaza are flirting at the gay bar (be still my heart), Harper is off with her daddy doing Republican things and catching up with some heteros from her high school days. 

All the while, Harper’s family are just so cruel to K-Stew behind her back, even making some absolutely wild jokes about her being an orphan. Under the influence of her family, Harper is increasingly mean to K-Stew. 

K-Stew and Aubrey Plaza leave the gay bar to go meet Harper at a straight person sports bar (I am thankfully very unfamiliar with these). This scene reminds me of whoever captioned this video with “when you accidentally find yourself in a straight bar”.

K-Stew wants to go home, but Harper wants to stay, so K-Stew just sadly walks off.

Personally, if K-Stew said she wanted to get out of a straight bar, I would be leaving with her so damn fast.

All of the tension comes to a head at Harper’s family’s Xmas Eve party.

K-Stew is leaning on the bar with an open shirt and loose tie like it’s 2004. Helloooooo Shane. No one could possibly choose their Republican family over this cutie. Yet somehow, Harper prefers her actual daddy and continues being mean to her.

Dan Levy suddenly turns up to whisk K-Stew away, because that’s what chosen queer family does.

Daddy on daddy.

Soon enough, Harper and K-Stew have a big fight, and Sloane enters just as they’re having a make up make out.

Sloane runs off to tell the entire family that Harper is a rug muncher. Harper denies it, so K-Stew understandably runs off. It’s extremely rough to watch the way Harper treats K-Stew.

The issue isn’t that Harper isn’t out. The issue is that she invited her girlfriend to her parents’ home without telling her she was in the closet. She made her lie about being queer, and then she proceeded to treat her like shit.

The other issues are that her wig is trash, she has zero chemistry with K-Stew and she needs to get out of the way so Aubrey Plaza and K-Stew can get it on.

The takeaway message here is that if someone calls their actual father “daddy”, you best dump them for Aubrey Plaza.

Harper and K-Stew unfortunately make up in the end. However, it’s on the proviso of K-Stew being brought into the family.

So, they literally all pose for a pic together in front of a Christmas tree. It is really sinister.

I endured this film for you all.

The film ends, I shit you not, on a family Instagram reel from these monsters. Honestly, what?

I have endured some low points for you, my dear reader. Remember when Shane and Tess flirted using Winnie the Pooh endearments? But trust me, this Instagram reel was an even lower point.

The reel involves a series of pictures where the family pose in happy, white, rich, hell. There is a Thanksgiving dinner, which is unsurprising, because of course they would celebrate this colonialist holiday.

The real clincher is the family all together at a Pride parade. They are holding… okay, breathe Jess… Pride flags, and a banner that reads “love is love”. This solidified my horror at this film’s reinforcement of the white nuclear family as the ultimate goal. I am appalled by the way they strived to make queerness so sanitised and palatable.

They are spending Pride with their family of origin, when they could be eating pingas and arse at a queer party.

I had to crop Aubrey Plaza out of this so I wouldn’t weep again.

So, how to rate this? 

There was a significant lack of scissoring, way too many concerning stalking jokes, extreme whiteness, reinforcement of white heteronormative family structures, and K-Stew wore an unconscionable number of bobby pins throughout. 

For this, and many more factors, I rate Happiest Season: worse than Better Than Chocolate.