Happiest Season (2020) Misses the Point of Queer Holiday Joy

With Christmas right around the corner, Harper (Mackenzie Davis) hopes to treat her longtime girlfriend Abby (Kristen Stewart) to a special weekend getaway with her family. There’s just one problem: Harper hasn’t come out to her parents yet. To save face until she’s comfortable enough to own her sexuality, Abby goes along with pretending to be a straight roommate while hoping to seek her family's acceptance to eventually propose.

Tis the season to be jolly and gay. At least, that’s what Happiness Season would like a lot of us to believe. Marketed as a holiday movie for the gays (and straights) – yay! – it’s hard to believe how much nuance is packed into the first major studio backed lesbian holiday flick – another yay! – and yet makes a total ba-humbug mess of this coming out tale. 

(This review contains spoilers)

Summerland (2020) Infuses the Wartime Genre with Magic and Love

Hollywood too often tells a familiar history of World War II. War stories are mostly reserved for heroic tales of the men behind some of the world’s greatest combat missions to defeat Adolf Hitler and establish support for the Allies. Rarely exploring the expansive experiences of women and minorities at the time, a few films are turning the tide of how cinema recollects history. In the similar vein of Lone Scherfig’s Their Finest or Mike Newell’s The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Summerland makes for a refreshing escape of self-discovery and fantasy during one of the world’s darkest periods.

Set in the English coastal countryside of Kent, academic researcher Alice Lamb (Gemma Arterton) becomes the guardian of a refuge child Frank (Lucas Bond) whose parents are fighting in the war. Despite the nearby town treating her as the “beast on the beach” for her unladylike behavior, Lamb and Frank develop an unlikely connection that helps unveil a lost romance with a former lover (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). As research about a fantastical island in the sky brings her closer to Frank, their time together draws more parallels between them than they ever could’ve imagined.

Ekaj (2015) Offers An Intimate Portrayal of Love and Hardship Among LGBTQ Youth

How do you find a sense of belonging when you’re not accepted by your own family, let alone society? Veteran fashion photographer turned writer and director Cati Gonzalez puts homeless LGBTQ youth under the microscope in a vivid portrayal of a too-often overlooked community.

After being kicked out by his homophobic father, a young teenager Ekaj (Jake Mestre) drifts on the hustling streets of New York City struggling to get by. When he befriends Mecca (Badd Idea), a thief and artist diagnosed with AIDS, the naïve Ekaj learns about the hardships of love, loss, and survival.