Kristen Stewart is waving around what appears to be a joint. Even her “Happiest Season” co-star Mackenzie Davis, who’s seen on Zoom with Stewart, doesn’t quite know exactly what Stewart has lit. “Oh my god,” Davis says. “I thought that was a blunt.”
It is actually Palo Santo, a South American tree that translates to “holy wood.” But for a moment, Stewart gets silly and pretends her soothing wood stick is an actual joint, moving it toward her mouth as if she’s going to smoke it. They both crack up at the thought of Stewart maybe getting blazed during our interview. “Just cleansing the energy!” Stewart assures.
After her “Twilight” years, a “Charlie’s Angels” reboot and a range of indies, Stewart’s latest movie, “Happiest Season,” feels a lot like taking a whiff of some Palo Santo – an energy-cleanser. For 102 festive minutes, it restores some of the downer pandemic energy of 2020 with comfort, joy and the promise of a yuletide so gay it makes sense that Clea DuVall, the openly lesbian actress who starred in the 1999 queer camp classic “But I’m a Cheerleader,” directed and co-wrote it.
The film is the first of its kind: a major studio-backed holiday rom-com with a queer love story at its center. In the movie, Stewart stars as Abby, whose girlfriend, Harper (Davis, who is straight and adored by the LGBTQ community for playing queer in the “San Junipero” episode of “Black Mirror”), invites her home for Christmas. At first, she’s not sure about meeting Harper’s family, but then decides she’s all in. Abby even plans to propose to her (with guidance from BFF John, played by Dan Levy). But what Abby doesn’t know until they’re en route: Harper hasn’t come out to her family.
Shot in February just before the film industry was forced to shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, the movie was originally slated for a wide theatrical release backed by Sony’s TriStar Pictures. But with many theaters still shuttered, “Happiest Season” has found a new (streaming) home for the holidays on Hulu.
During our recent Zoom call, Stewart and Davis talked about moving beyond the fetishizing of lesbian relationships, why they love gay bars and how Stewart plans to continue to use her A-list power to radicalize conventional genres with queerness.