'Happiest Season' Broke Streaming Records on Hulu

From Harper's BAZAAR

Happiest Season, the holiday rom-com starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis, broke Hulu streaming records after premiering over Thanksgiving weekend. It became the most-watched film across the streaming website during opening weekend and had the most hours watched among all the site's original films. It also outperformed all other movies on Hulu for bringing in the most new subscribers, though specific numbers weren't disclosed.

Originally slated for a theatrical release but altered due to the coronavirus pandemic, Happiest Season debuted online exclusively on Hulu instead, and to much fanfare. The platform said that the rom-com became its most talked-about original film on Twitter. “It’s really heartening to me that so many people wanted to get this story out there,” the director, Clea DuVall, who wrote the screenplay with star Mary Holland, told Variety of the film's success.

The comedy follows Abby (Stewart) and her girlfriend, Harper (Davis), as they spend Christmas at home with Harper's family. The catch is that Harper has not yet come out to her kin, so both she and Abby have to keep their relationship—and their true identities—a secret throughout the whole trip. DuVall crafted Happiest Season, the first mainstream gay Christmas rom-com, after being a fan of the genre but "never seeing my experience represented" on-screen. "I realized that I could make the movie that I always wanted to see," she told Rolling Stone.

The impressive streaming success of Happiest Season just proves that there's an eager audience for more LGBTQ stories for the holidays and beyond.

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