A 'radical' rom-com: How 'Happiest Season' is both familiar and brand new

The latest holiday rom-com, "Happiest Season," includes many tropes of the genre but the premise is a breath of fresh air.

Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis) are a lesbian couple visiting Harper's family for the first time. The only catch is that Harper hasn't yet told them she's gay.

The cast of "Happiest Season" spoke to Yahoo Entertainment about how they successfully subverted a genre known for hewing to a traditional formula.

"There are a lot of funny, weird things that happen between girls and guys when they go home together for Christmas," Steward said of the typical hijinks that accompany a standard rom-com. "But different things happen with two girls ... and those jokes are just new to us. Like we haven't told them yet."

Video transcript

- Hi!

- Hi.

- I didn't tell my parents I'm gay.

- So who do they think I am?

- This is Harper's orphan friend, Abby.

- Yes, of course. There, there.

- You're so brave.

KEVIN POLOWY: As characters of this lovely film, what can you tell me about the origins of the story and what inspired you guys?

CLEA DUVALL: I've always been a big fan of Christmas movies. But I had never seen my own experience represented in one. And then when I started directing and writing a few years back, I realized that I could just make one. I met Mary when we were working on "Veep" together and just fell in love with her-- platonically, Mary.

MARY HOLLAND: OK. That sounded like a--

CLEA DUVALL: Platonically.

MARY HOLLAND: --confession of love. I don't know.

CLEA DUVALL: Mary close your ears. She's such a wonderful person. And she's so funny. And we just had this chemistry together that just felt so fun and loose. And so I asked her if she wanted to work on writing the script with me. And for some reason she said yes. And then we went from there.

KEVIN POLOWY: "Happiest Season" is making some history. It's the first lesbian romantic comedy and also the first same-sex holiday rom-com to be produced by any major studio, hopefully the first of many. But what does it mean to each of you to be involved in such a groundbreaking project?

MACKENZIE DAVIS: It's so exciting. It's such a special script. I mean, all of those markers of why it's special-- the first, the first, the first. It also has to be kind of great in order to hold those titles. And I think Clea and Mary wrote such a beautiful heartfelt script. It's really personal but also fits really comfortably within this genre that people do feel comforted by.

KRISTEN STEWART: If I think about whether or not I'd ever really be in a romantic comedy, I don't think that I would necessarily be either interested in something that was so straight down the line. And I don't mean just in terms of it being gay or straight or whatever. But this one did just feel-- as much as it leaned into the genre, and always thrived when it did actually really unabashedly lean into things that sometimes felt tropey but felt so good to do it with this skin on it.

There are a lot of funny, weird things that happened between girls and guys when they go home together for Christmas. But different things happen with two girls. And those jokes are just new to us. We haven't told them yet. It was really fun to scratch the surface of something that feels really familiar, but at the same time, just completely new.

- So her parents believe their straight daughter brought home her lesbian friend for Christmas?

- Not exactly.

- They also think that I'm straight.

- Have they ever met a lesbian?

DANIEL LEVY: Kristen and Mackenzie are just the greatest. So for me it was a no-brainer. And to be a part of history is always a wonderful thing. And to know that people will see themselves in this movie for the first time, that's an incredible thing to be a part of.

AUBREY PLAZA: It feels really good to be in a very mainstream familiar kind of christmasy rom-com movie, but have it be representing LGBTQ+ community. We need that representation. We need to normalize these kinds of stories.

KEVIN POLOWY: I mean, do you guys see this as a film that is both conventional but also radical or subversive?

CLEA DUVALL: Absolutely. I mean, I think because we haven't really seen this movie before, and yet we have. We have seen big, bright, warm, holiday movies. But they're always told from a very specific perspective. And that this one follows all the rules of the genre and really honors the genre because it centers around an LGBTQ couple, it is something that has never been done.

MARY HOLLAND: Hopefully this will become a thing where it's not radical, it's just part of the genre; part of the stories that are being told.

- Are you there ex-boyfriend?

- Yes.

MARY STEENBURGEN: I was in the movie "Philadelphia." And over the years I had a number of people come up to me. And the ones that really meant a lot to me were people who said "I come from a very conservative family. We didn't know how to deal with"-- in one case I remember a flight attendant saying "my brother's-- the fact that he was gay. And in that case he had AIDS."

And she said, "because of that movie, our whole family was with him when he passed." And they needed that modeling of a family that surrounded somebody with love. And I feel like with this, a lot of kids and young people come out to their families over the holidays. And if this makes a difference and helps at all to remember to share the love over the holidays, then it's really worth it.

- OK. None of these will do. We will try again tomorrow. Thank you.