‘Happiest Season’: Coming-out dramedy wrapped in a festive Christmastime bow
By Tom Meek
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Clea DuVall, the actor best known for her roles in the TV series “Veep” and “The Faculty” (1998), targets holiday tradition and family structures in “Happiest Season,” her sophomore directorial effort. The setup has Harper (Mackenzie Davis) and Abby (Kristen Stewart) heading to Harper’s very conservative parents’ house for Christmas. There’s much promise for a joyous sojourn: Abby’s got a diamond ring in her pocket at the ready for a marriage proposal at the right time, and she’ll be meeting her in-laws to be. But en route, it’s revealed Harper’s not out to her fam, and Abby’s tagged just as her roommate.
You can see where this is going a mile out, and while the two leads spark a solid chemistry, it’s Mary Steenburgen as Harper’s controlling mom Tipper (as in Gore, when she wanted to censor music?) and Aubrey Plaza, so good in “Black Bear” (2020) and “Ingrid Goes West” (2017) as Harper’s ex, Riley, who light up the screen. DuVall, who cowrote the script, adds a bevy of side threads that turn the family’s cozy manse into a maze of repression and skeletons in closet. Harper’s politician father, Ted (Victor Garber), is running for mayor of Pittsburgh (an apt setting, considering the state’s pivotal role in the recent election), and an upright appearance is demanded at all turns; and there’s something very off about the marriage of Harper’s hostile sister, Sloane (Alison Brie). Mostly the parents stand by and watch the dysfunction unfurl, until Abby’s gay male confidant (Dan Levy), sensitive to her position, drops in and poses as Abby’s hetero beau – like a “Queer Eye” cast member trying to go all Schwarzenegger.
As sure as there’s milk and cookies on Christmas Eve, reckonings, reveals and epiphanies get unwrapped. DuVall and her talented ensemble pull it all off nicely, though the fine balance between drama and comedy gets a bit wobbly and inconsistent. The scenes between Stewart’s Abby and Plaza’s ex are the most heartfelt, emotional and genuine. Stewart, who held up the slack thriller “Underwater” this year and navigated similar territory in “Lizzie” (2018) gets her opportunities to shine, though the film feels like it should be Davis’ for the taking. The tall angular actress, imposing in the TV series “Halt and Catch Fire” and as the can-do cybernetic in “Terminator: Dark Fate” (2019), gets somewhat lost in the shuffle – a hub for all the frayed anxiety to flow thorough for so long that she never truly gets her own moment. Still, “Happiest Season” delivers all the holiday madness in entertaining form with a few different sides and trimmings to make the rewrap feel fittingly anew.
To say Molly’s a bit of an overplanner would be an understatement, but to date things have mostly worked out – she’s in at Yale. We catch up with the library-loving pair on the eve of graduation, when reality comes crashing in on their four-year abstinence. Molly, in the pleasant surroundings of a coed bathroom, learns that many of the partying jocks and popular girls also got in at their first choices – Stanford for the handsome A-Rod clone, and a much-scorned “easy” girl is also heading to Yale. Talk about a bucket of ice water, let alone a water-filled condom hurled in the hallway that finds its viscous mark. A quick re-eval and Molly decides that the two must hit the most hip and happening party that night to notch “a seminal fun antidote” and that smooch for her BFF who has her eye on a certain someone.
The term “fingersmith” refers to either a midwife or a pickpocket. Given the film’s title you might assume the former, and we start off by meeting Sook-Hee (Kim Tae-ri), a young Korean who tends to infants whose fates are more likely dictated by matters of profit than the kindness of charity. But the reality is it’s both – and fingers in general play a large part throughout. Sook-Hee’s plucked from among the nannies by the dashing Count Fujiwara (Jung-woo Ha) to become handmaiden to Lady Hideko (Min-hee Kim), who lives in a stately manse that would be a perfect fit for a Merchant-Ivory project. As quaint as this all is, we learn quickly that all is not that tidy and proper; Fujiwara isn’t Japanese, or even a nobleman – just a shrewd opportunist trying to get ahead during tumultuous times, and Sook-Hee, for all her nurturing, wholesome innocence, has a past of using her dexterously light fingers for illicit gains. 
The dynamic between Cynthia and Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna) is ever evolving. Initially Evelyn appears the part of a maid late for work on her first day. She’s obedient and demure in her duties, but under constant scrutiny and certain to make a mistake, and when she does she’s “punished” by being used as “a human toilet.” One might wince at such an act (it takes place offscreen, but the acute sound editing registers it profoundly in the viewer’s mind), but such are the games a pair in love play, and they go on to involve shining boots and being made to bake your own birthday cake without getting to eat it. Then there’s the time spent in that coffin-like chest – and through it all, Cynthia drinks plenty of water, ever ready to dispense her form of urinary discipline. 
For What it's Worth 