By Jenny Wallace
Arts & Entertainment Editor

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

As we grow closer to the holiday season, we also become exposed to this time of year’s cheesy and cliché Christmas romance movies. To start off my bad holiday movie binge, I watched “Happiest Season,” a movie about a lesbian couple, and surprise, one of the women in the relationship isn’t out to her family.

From the start, I knew the movie had the “in the closet” movie trope. While coming out is a significant part in someone’s life, constantly seeing it downplayed in films has become tiring, because the main character’s parents rarely disown or are even mildly upset with their child. 

This is an unrealistic reaction, as some LGBTQ+ children risk facing abuse if they were to be outed to their family. This movie plays it off as if it’s just ‘show and tell’ for everyone to spill secrets to the family.

In addition, the gay best friend is exactly who you would expect him to be. Using terms like ‘heteronormativity’ and ‘patriarchy,’ he was too stereotyped at times to be likeable. I loved him, until the end when his advice contradicted itself, as Kristen Stewart’s character, Abby, was bouncing back and forth with her emotions, relying on GBF John (Daniel Levy) to make decisions for her.

Overall, I didn’t hate the film – I quite liked it, minus the ending. Abby faces challenges with her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis) who is constantly choosing her family over not only Abby’s sanity but also Abby’s humanity.

I think it’s important to address that some people need to wait to come out to their family and that’s okay. However, there comes a point where staying in the closet is detrimental to their partner’s  mental health and well-being, which this movie demonstrates when Abby is constantly ignored and pushed aside by Harper prominent throughout the entire movie. 

In my opinion, It would have been a better film if Abby had left the relationship so Harper could find herself first, growing more comfortable with her lesbian identity and being honest with her family, rather than promising a life to a girl she was afraid to even introduce to her parents initially.