I really need some comfort movies right now, and the streaming services are keen on giving them to me. So here comes "Happiest Season" from Hulu, and "Uncle Frank" from Amazon Prime, two cuddly coming-out stories featuring a lot of good talent both behind and in front of the camera. "Uncle Frank" is a more straightforward melodrama, set in 1973, about a young woman named Beth (Sophia Lillis) who discovers that her professor uncle, Frank (Paul Bettany) is secretly gay and in a relationship with a sweet-natured Saudi Arabian man named Walid (Peter Macdissi). After the death of Frank's father (Stephen Root), Frank has to go home to South Carolina for the funeral, and finally face the rest of the family and his inner demons.
The scope of "Uncle Frank" is very small and very personal, and I suppose that it says something about how far the LGBT culture has come that parts of the narrative are now very familiar. There's the awkward subterfuge maintained by Frank and Walid for the benefit of various family members, the painful flashbacks to trauma suffered in Frank's youth, and the warmly matriarchal presence of veteran actresses Margo Martindale and Lois Smith, who play Frank's mother and aunt. Writer/director Alan Ball is not interested in striking out in any original directions, but ensures that the material is delivered as well as it possibly can be. Frank and Beth's family of narrow-minded but ultimately loving Southern folks are not caricatures. Walid is a delightful, poignant character, and Macdissi's performance is one of the clear highlights of the film. It's also rather comforting to see Sophia Lillis and Paul Bettany playing characters close to their actual ages, that are substantial roles with some real emotional complexity to them. It feels like it's been ages since I've seen Bettany in a proper leading role with any sort of nuance. He really should do this more often.
"Happiest Season," by contrast, is a much lighter lesbian rom-com that's sneakily far more daring and interesting than it looks at first glance. It's set up like a typical big family Christmas movie, where our heroine, Abby (Kristen Stwart), is invited to go home for the holidays with her girlfriend Harper (Makenzie Davis) to meet her family. Abby has bought a ring and is keen to propose. Alas, it turns out that Harper hasn't come out to her family, and gets Abby to agree to pretend that they're only roommates. Hijinks ensue, as Abby meets Harper's politician father (Victor Garber), perfectionist mother (Mary Steenburgen), competitive older sister Sloane (Alison Brie), and oddball younger sister Jane (Mary Holland). And then there are Harper's exes, Connor (Jake McDorman) and Riley (Aubrey Plaza).
I love the way that so many of the usual conventions of these films get turned on their heads here. Abby spends a lot of time on phone calls with her comic-relief gay friend named John (a scene-stealing Dan Levy), and has several run-ins with an initially hostile Riley. These two turn out to be her major pillars of emotional and moral support, being the two other out gay characters in the movie who can relate to what she's going through. Harper's family is a wonderful minefield of long-simmering tensions and rivalries, and I love Allison Brie and Mary Holland as the sisters - one an uptight super mom, and the other a genial weirdo. The film is the directing debut of Clea DuVall, who co-wrote the film with Holland. And I'm happy to report that the relationships and the character dynamics here are all very solidly built, and the little moments of awkwardness and humor are very genuine and relatable. "Happiest Season" fits right in with the '90s Christmas comedies of my childhood - which were a little meaner and a little smarter than most of the output today. And thus, much more fun.
Of course, both movies end happily with romances flourishing and major family bonds renewed, because it's the holidays. Both movies are good enough that they earn those endings though, and "Uncle Frank" wisely offers a little bitter to go with the sweet. I think I prefer "Happiest Season," though, for just embracing its premise so wholeheartedly, and giving a bunch of talented actresses a chance to shine.
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