Gay People Deserve Bad Christmas Movies, Too!
From the Archives: A review of Clea DuVall’s ‘Happiest Season’
Holiday Greetings and Gay Happy Meetings!
Happy Holidays, Yearners. This year, we asked for you! Your continued support and enthusiasm for The Yearning since September has meant so much to us. We’re hoping you’ll help us keep spreading this holiday cheer—we are so close to reaching our goal of 200 subscribers by 2023!
And as an added incentive, we’d like to offer you something in return for your support—if we hit 200 by the 1st, we’ll release the audio recording of our upcoming tag team review of The L Word: Gen Q! Will our thoughts be as chaotic as the show? Probably!
So, if there’s anyone you know who could use a little more longing in their life, feel free to send this review (or any of our others) their way.
See you in the New Year ♥
The Yearning Rating: ✰✰✰½
Romance ✰✰✰½
Sex ✰✰
Storytelling ✰✰✰
Performance ✰✰✰✰✰
Yearning ✰✰✰✰½
Written by Meg Heim
We are giving the people what they want—and that is a review of the divisive queer Christmas movie, Happiest Season. For a movie with such a cheery title, we certainly get off to a…tense start. Harper (Mackenzie Davis) kicks that off by giving Abby (Kristen Stewart 🤤) a whole 5 minutes of warning before forcing her back in the closet. Harper’s family, the Caldwells, are also all inexplicably cold to Abby? Even before her unfortunate series of events—including blurry family Christmas photos and a run-in with mall police—nobody has the time of day for her. We understand pretty quickly that everyone in the family is in service of Dad, whose mayoral campaign takes precedence above all else. Maybe Harper and her sisters can’t help but see Abby as another potential drain on his time and love? It’s a very bizarre way to treat a house guest and family friend. And if anyone in the family is suspicious of their relationship being more than friends, than…wow. Not exactly a warm welcome!
As the days draw nearer to Christmas, Harper strays farther and farther away from being an even halfway decent partner. She alienates Abby as she allows her mom to attempt to get her back together with her ex-boyfriend Connor, staying out with him… alone…until 2a? She grows resentful of Abby’s requests for communication and quality time—consistently prioritizing her dad’s political campaign, even though she was the one who invited Abby in the first place?
Things finally get interesting when Abby befriends Riley (Aubrey Plaza!!!), Harper’s ex-girlfriend from high school. The two have undeniable sexual tension and cynical, snarky personalities that seem about 1,000x more suited for each other. Riley provides a consistent safe place for Abby when she feels shunted aside in service of the preppy and image-obsessed world of Harper’s hometown.
Viewers almost universally believed that Abby and Riley should’ve ended up together. But why didn’t they? Despite the fact that the queer relationship at the core of this movie made it feel fresh and unique, it’s still a romantic comedy. And in romantic comedies—the central couples almost never break up. So I think what we were all looking for was an…anti rom-com?
So. For this special holiday edition of The Yearning, I’m not going to be discussing themes, motifs, or performance.
Instead…I’m going to rewrite this movie. (Well, parts of it.) Mostly the necessary scenes to give us all the ending we actually wanted. And a few other things that I think would’ve made for a more interesting and satisfying watch.
A quick refresher on the film before we dive in:
Abby and Harper are a couple, living together in Pittsburgh, and are preparing to spend Christmas together at Harper’s family home. Abby lost both of her parents at 19 and has no family to go home to for Christmas.
Abby and her bestie, John (Dan Levy) pick up an engagement ring in the first 15 minutes of the film and discuss Abby’s plans to propose on Christmas morning.
Harper’s dad, Ted (Victor Garber) is a Republican-coded candidate running for mayor and is consumed with trying to get the support of potential campaign donor Harry Levin.
This becomes relevant when Harper confesses to Abby that she lied about already coming out to her parents. The two are going to have to act like straight roommates until the family is done impressing Harry with Christmas festivities.
Abby begins to understand the intense and toxically competitive dynamics at play in the home, particularly between Harper and her older sister, Sloane (Alison Brie).
New scenes below! I’ll also be linking the original scenes along with my rewrites, in case you don’t remember and want to refresh, or if you hate my ideas and would rather just watch clips of the movie.
In the original script, this scene is where we learn that Harper and Abby have only been together for a little over a year. A terse scene between Sloane and Abby much later reveals that they’ve been living together for about 6 months. This expedited relationship timeline (dating for about a year, moved in together 6 months ago, and already bought an engagement ring) does not feel like something that should be ignored, as it's so red-flaggy! I also did not want to lose the opportunity to make a U-Haul joke.
The relaxed and happy energy Abby and Riley shared during this scene—even after discussing the reality of Riley and Harper’s past relationship—was such a breath of fresh air.
Now kiss!
And finally, we’re here. It feels good. Riley + Abby 4Ever.
Definitely a MUCH better ending!