Happiest Season

"This holiday, everyone's secrets are coming out."

2020 1h 42m EN

👍

7.1

SOLID

★7.1TMDB · 1,350

RomanceComedy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A young woman's plans to propose to her girlfriend while at her family's annual holiday party are upended when she discovers her partner hasn't yet come out to her conservative parents.

“This holiday, everyone's secrets are coming out.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Kristen Stewart
Abby
Mackenzie Davis
Harper
Mary Steenburgen
Tipper
Victor Garber
Ted
Alison Brie
Sloane
Mary Holland
Jane
Dan Levy
John
Burl Moseley
Eric

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Clea DuVall
Writers: Clea DuVall, Clea DuVall, Mary Holland
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

ERA

Did you know

Released 6 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Clea DuVall, shot by John Guleserian. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Amie Doherty. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Melissa Bretherton shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis and Mary Steenburgen carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "This holiday, everyone's secrets are coming out.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt8522006 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Clea DuVall directs. John Guleserian behind the camera. Amie Doherty scores. Melissa Bretherton cuts. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 6 years ago.
2Directed by Clea DuVall, shot by John Guleserian. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Original score by Amie Doherty. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
4Editor Melissa Bretherton shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
5Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis and Mary Steenburgen carry the top of the cast.
6Marketing tagline: "This holiday, everyone's secrets are coming out.".
7IMDB entry: tt8522006 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Classified under 23 themes, including "coming out", "marriage proposal", "holiday", "romcom".

The technical file

Cinematography: John Guleserian
Original score: Amie Doherty
Editing: Melissa Bretherton
Production design: Theresa Guleserian
Costume design: Kathleen Felix-Hager
Makeup / hair: Stacey Panepinto
VFX supervisor: James Pastorius
Sound: Deb Adair
Stunt coordinator: Doug Coleman
Runtime: 102 min · 1h 42m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Box office: $1,401,954
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: Happiest Season (2020)

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Clea DuVall

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Kamurai2020-11-30
★ 8/10
Great watch, would watch again, and do recommend. There is a huge advantage in knowing as little as possible about a movie before watching it: mostly it removes expectations, and allows little surprises to delight you through the movie. I watched it because it was a Kristen Stewart movie, but was happily surprised to see Clea Duvall involved, and continually delighted to see familiar faces appear: Mary Holland, Alison Brie, and Aubrey Plaza especially. I'm honestly not familiar with "a lot" of "coming out of the closet, but not quite yet" stories, but I have seen a lot of "secrets for the holidays", and "don't tell my family x", and this is very interesting that it uses that concept to knock the wind out of the sails of the story so early. While the majority of the story is basically abuse humor, it's delivered in a way that manages to both garner sympathy for Abbie and be charmingly amusing. If the movie has a real downside, then it's that it tries to do (almost) too many things, but manages to pull it off. Yeah, I pretty much hate Harper, but that's by design, and she's a victim as much as a villain. The shift in stories as things all start to resolve is the "worst" part of it, but ultimately makes for a satisfying ending.
Peter McGinn2020-12-15
★ 7/10
I was surprised by how much I liked this Hulu Christmas offering, since you can get jaded at the number of holiday romantic movies the various sources crank out every year. The movie seems to combine several sub genres here, the familiar gay coming out, dysfunctional holiday family, even bordering in romantic triangle territory. Martin Levy’s son does him proud, as Dan Levy was a real scene stealer here. I quickly decided the more of him, the better. The chemistry between the two leads wasn’t quite evident to me and I am not sure why. I saw more chemistry between Harper and Abby’s ex-girlfriend Riley, actually. Also, I think an opportunity was lost in the perpetually frowning two kids. They should have been allowed a bit more personality I think. (And what is up with all the gender neutral names for many of the female characters here? Harper, Tipper, Sloan, Riley, Harry, Kelly and Ashley. Weird. Mary Steenburgen does her usual competent job playing the wife and matriarch, though I felt they let her fade a little into the background until she asserts herself near the end. So while this movie won’t enter my cycle of Christmas movies to watch annually, I enjoyed it just fine (tinged with the shadow of regret that it wouldn’t have taken much more to be very good). The writers do not have many film credits, so I hope they continue to write and improve. I won’t change the channel if I run across it in the future.
ravensview2022-12-21
★ 8/10
I usually avoid Christmas movies but some of those names grabbed me - Mack Davis, Aubrey Plaza, Dan Levy, and more. All put in a great performance, the story made sense, the plot was well done, and it was a nice little town - all good.