For Kristen Stewart and Dan Levy, Christmas is the Happiest Season
The Twilight star on making her new ‘weird’ holiday rom com — ‘everyone had some skin in the game … It couldn’t be a job to anyone’.
What I think we can all agree on is this: March was a Bad Month. Which was why nobody batted an eyelid when, quietly and around the world, people started putting their Christmas trees back up. Fishing the tree out from whatever forgotten corner it had been stashed in and resurrecting old baubles and untangling tinsel seemed like a way of taking a Bad Month and finding the crack in it – the one that lets the light in.
Christmas trees will do that. Maybe it’s the sight of things that sparkle. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the tree at all. It’s probably all about the rituals; of unboxing decorations and arguing over the correct placement of the angel or realising that the string of fairy lights has short-fused seconds after you’ve painstakingly wrapped it around each individual branch. That’s the magic of Christmas: memories, togetherness and the tension that sticks in between. Or maybe the real magic of Christmas is that it can be those things, and all things, and nothing at all. It’s just Christmas.
Well, forget March – Clea DuVall feels like she has had her Christmas tree up for the past two years. That’s how long the director has spent steeped in festive spirit while making her film Happiest Season, a long overdue addition to the Christmas movie canon. The romantic comedy tells the story of Abby (Kristen Stewart) who plans to propose to her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis, star of Blade Runner 2049 and Tully) at an annual holiday party, only to discover that Harper hasn’t come out to her family yet. “I feel like I am the neighbour who has left their Christmas lights up for too long,” DuVall says, laughing. We’re speaking over Zoom in September, the quiet moment in the calendar before supermarkets start playing carols with unhinged exuberance. “I’m not gonna lie, there is a part of me that feels a little less excited to put up the tree this year, but I’m sure I will get into it,” she predicts.
DuVall has always loved Christmas, and Christmas movies – she watches National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation every year. “I think they’re so fun. Even the ones that aren’t very good, I still watch them,” DuVall says. “But I had never seen my own experience represented.” Her whole life as a queer woman, she had never seen a Christmas rom-com with a lesbian couple at its centre, their romance unspooling against a backdrop of candy canes and chaos. Romantic comedies have always been formulaic – just a bunch of films about girls, standing in front of boys, asking them to love them. But Christmas movies make those worn-in rom-com tropes look practically trailblazing by comparison. Christmas movies are essentially the same sappy stories told over and over again, a carousel of straight, white couples and straight, white families connecting and reconnecting as the days tumble towards December 25.
And we love to see it. There’s a reason why Home Alone was the highest grossing film of 1990 and I’ve seen The Holiday approximately 250 times since Nancy Meyers first unleashed the hounds. Last year saw almost 100 new Christmas releases dashing onto streaming platforms. “We like touchstones with Christmas,” muses Davis. As Harper in Happiest Season, she plays the daughter of tightly wound parents played by Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen. “We like to eat the same foods and do the same routines and have this reliability,” she says.
We’ve depended even more on those familiar routines in this annus horribilis that began with devastating bushfires and metastasised into a global pandemic. American radio stations have been playing carols throughout lockdown; in the spirit of ‘we need this’, Hallmark commenced its annual Christmas movie marathon months early. And then there’s Happiest Season, a warm, tender hug of a film with a festive message of acceptance at its core. “This is a universal story told through a different perspective,” affirms DuVall. It’s funny – and a little bit weird, which all rom-coms ought to be if they possibly can. It shimmers with romance. The tone is just right. And the cast is flawless. In addition to Stewart, Davies, Garber and Steenburgen, the movie stars Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza and Dan Levy, the man, the myth, the legend of Schitt’s Creek himself. “At times the actors were having too much fun,” DuVall enthuses, “and I would have to be like, ‘guys, stop playing games.’”
It all started with Stewart, who was the first actor cast and the “heart of the film” says DuVall. (“And I’ve never seen her do anything like she does in this movie,” she teases.) Like the director, Stewart has had her own journey as a queer woman in Hollywood. “I never grew up with a gay Christmas movie,” Stewart reflects, which is partly what drew her to Happiest Season. There was a sense that DuVall was creating something special: a queer romantic comedy, set during the festive season, produced by a major studio. Stewart signed on, knowing that her co-stars would have to be committed to telling this story with as much empathy as she was. “It didn’t feel like anyone could be in this movie,” explains Stewart. “It felt like [DuVall] needed to make sure that everyone had some skin in the game … It couldn’t be a job to anyone.”
The first time Stewart and Davis met, the pair had already been locked in as the star-crossed couple. DuVall arranged a dinner for the three of them, the lead-up to which was as clumsy and nerve-racking for her as a blind date. “I was also, famously, very nervous,” adds Davis. “And if I get nervous, but in a positive or excited way, I get a bit manic.” Davis remembers laughing, a lot, and being unable to control how much she was laughing. “I don’t know if that was my best showing in terms of a first impression, but I had a long time to correct it after that,” she says. “You don’t expect movie stars to be cool … but she’s so great. And funny. And so smart and inquisitive. And I kept being like: ‘Ooh, I have such a friendship crush on Kristen.’ And then we did become friends!”
The feeling was very much mutual. “It was like: ‘Hey, I don’t know this girl yet, but I know that I want to,’” Stewart recalls. “You’re definitely the person I want to make this weird movie with, and I still feel that way. I want to put Mackenzie in everything I do in the future. She’s a f****** ace up my sleeve – she’s my favourite actor.” (“I’m glowing right now,” Davis interjects.)
We couldn’t be more primed to watch a soothing silly-season film this year. “When I saw the movie for the first time, I felt comforted by it,” says Stewart. “Probably because I really enjoyed making it, and I’m totally biased and I miss everyone I made it with.” Stewart had such a good time on set that she became unexpectedly emotional at the wrap dinner. “Victor Garber gets up to make a speech,” she recalls, “and suddenly I’m crying.”
But DuVall also believes that the movie couldn’t have been made until this moment, as studios finally respond to the hunger, loud and urgent, for representation on screen. “The more we’re able to open up to different perspectives, the better off we’ll all be,” DuVall says. It’s even more important to do so in a genre that is so mired in tradition, like festive films. “People are seeing something they are used to, but just a little bit different,” explains Dr Tobi Evans, gender and pop culture expert, “in a way that makes space for diverse identities and helps people feel seen.”
Not all Christmases are merry, especially for those in the queer community. “Many people don’t experience loving families or kindness of spirit, and as such Christmas can be a very difficult period,” explains psychologist Danya Braunstein. “I definitely very much relate,” DuVall says. “This movie is upfront about the good things and the not so good things that the holidays bring up.” Family relationships can be fraught. The private can become public. But ultimately, Happiest Season is a tale of love. “Seeing a positive depiction of a queer love story that is cloaked in humour, and some struggle, but triumph ultimately – all of that is so important,” says Davis.
“In a time when we are all forced to be so physically disconnected – to be able to find ways back to each other, that’s what I’m seeking,” adds DuVall. “When I watch Happiest Season, it makes me feel hopeful. It makes me feel connected.”
Happiest Season is in cinemas on November 26.