Happiest Season

Available on streaming services and Sky Cinema in the UK.

Clea Duvall’s Happiest Season has been getting favourable reviews and has gone from cinema to video on–demand, to subscription TV incredibly quickly. So while I’d not managed to catch it up to now, appearing on Sky in the UK was the perfect excuse! Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davies are Abby and Harper a couple who as they head into the Christmas holidays suddenly have a change of heart about their festive plans, with Harper inviting Abby to her family Christmas. Abby who doesn’t really celebrate Christmas since losing her parents reluctantly agrees. The issue, Harper is not out to her seemingly conservative parents.

While sold as a Christmas movie, it’s not really that, it’s a relationship focussed comedy set at Christmas, while the time of year does provide the background for the heightened circumstances it’s not core to the story.

However, that doesn’t really matter, because we do have is a well told story even if it is a very familiar one, the balance between comedy and emotion is well done and there doesn’t feel to be any caricature characters, Stewart and Davies are well supported by Alison Brie, Mary Holland, Dan Levy and a lovely turn by Mary Steenburgen as Harper’s controlling and driven mother.

I’m not sure it will go down as a Christmas classic, but it is an enjoyable watch with a cast of characters that you’re happy to spend time with and a story that has a good warm heart and plenty of laughs.

If you’re after a warm, if not necessarily festive comedy, then you won’t be disappointed.