It’s that time of the year again! Hallmark Christmas movies are making their way onto people’s watchlists, and everyone’s getting ready to rewatch their favorite Christmas movies, with or without Santa Claus. Everyone has their specific Christmas and Christmas Eve movie traditions that grow sweeter and warmer every year, irrespective of how good or bad the movie in question is.
Love Actually, Home Alone, the hotly debated Die Hard, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Holiday, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and It’s A Wonderful Life – it’s time to bring out the classics. The endearing and life-affirming quality of classic Christmas movies keeps them in circulation decades after their original releases, as they capture the true spirit of the holidays.
However, if you’re one for modern cinema, the best Christmas movies of the past decade may have grabbed your attention. Representation has always been a point of contention regarding the classics, and these films might scratch that itch or offer the Gen Z outlook on the season that the classics can’t. Happiest Season must be on your watchlist either way.
Abby And Harper Should Have Broken Up In Happiest Season’s Ending
Clea Duvall made one of the best underrated Christmas romance movies of all time when she cast Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis as a lesbian couple in conflict during the holidays. They play Abby and Harper, respectively, who are visiting the latter’s parents for Christmas, with a horrifying catch, and Harper has waited until it’s too late to reveal it.
Harper hasn’t come out to her family, and not only must the couple pretend to be friends, but Abby also thinks she has to pretend she is straight, because Harper’s parents are conservative. While the movie perfectly demonstrates the struggles they both face in trying to fit into roles they shouldn’t have to, the ending seems to undo all the character development.
Ask anyone who’s been in that situation, and they’ll tell you that the healthiest choice for both Abby and Harper would be for them to go their separate ways. Instead, after a convenient, albeit heartbreaking, revelation, an inevitable reconciliation is set up. The progress seems to have been abandoned in favor of an ending that fits typical Christmas movie narratives.
Happiest Season’s Ending Feels Too Conventional
Happiest Season feels like a breath of fresh air because it is a major production with an incredible ensemble cast that is refreshingly not about a heterosexual couple, unlike most Christmas movies with its production quality continue to be. It’s like an active rejection of convention, and the perfect conclusion to that would be a healthy, and maybe amicable breakup.
While the final scene of reconciliation is based on Harper being outed and their conflict basically disappearing, Abby still deserved better, That last scene would have worked better as a conversation to part ways without holding grudges instead of forcefully getting back together. That feels like a choice made to placate fans of typical Christmas films, instead of challenging convention.
Kristen Stewart Has Better Chemistry With Aubrey Plaza In Happiest Season
What makes the ending of Happiest Season particularly egregious is the presence of Aubrey Plaza’s Riley, Harper’s ex. This could have just been an acting choice made by the cast based on their characters, but Plaza and Stewart’s chemistry in the few scenes they share is much stronger than Davis and Stewart’s in any of their scenes as a couple.
Abby and Riley’s relationship would have been better for Happiest Season’s ending, because they seem to share a mutual understanding that Harper somehow lacks whenever she’s around her family. Harper must have been a great partner to Abby before, but the treatment in the movie, and her incredibly well-written scenes of flirting with Riley, make the latter, the better choice.
Dan Levy’s Cameo Would Be Improved With A Different Ending
My favorite reason to revisit Happiest Season, which is why it’s my Christmas tradition alongside Die Hard on Christmas Eve, is Dan Levy’s perfect cameo. He plays Abby’s best friend, an urban gay man with an impeccable fashion sense, an amazing sense of humor, and tons of empathy for every person in the world, but almost no skills at house-sitting.
His advice to Abby regarding everyone having their own timeline for coming out builds up to the climactic reconciliation between her and Harper. However, it would have been the ideal setup for Abby to understand Harper’s side, while still choosing to move away. It is hard to overlook the disrespect and emotional abuse she was subjected to over the holidays.
Happiest Season Still Deserves To Be Considered A Christmas Classic
Ask anyone who’s seen Happiest Season and liked it, and all they’ll talk about is how the ending completely ruins it. However, the reason we’re so bothered, half a decade later, is because we love every bit of the movie, barring the climax. It captures the feeling of experiencing Christmas as someone who families often reject, but without becoming depressing.