Movie Reviews: Happiest Season (2020) & Uncle Frank (2020)

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'Tis the season of giving... and the season of needing a rest. The weeks between Thanksgiving all the way up through Hanukkah and/or Christmas and New Year's are often dubbed the happiest time of the year. But it's also undeniably the most stressful period of the calendar year as well. And this is particularly true for those of us returning to our childhood homes for the holidays as we come face-to-face with family, old friends, and all of the judgments and pressures that go along with sudden reunions with the people we were once closest to in life, the ones who know us the best, that is if they even know us at all.

Although there's a tendency to revert back to old patterns and behavior when surrounded by nostalgia, not too many of us are the same people today that we were in high school, and sometimes it's hard to make loved ones see you not for the child you were in the past but the adult you are today. And while this might be anything from annoying to awkward for a majority of heterosexuals, it can be absolutely terrifying and life-changing to LGBTQ adults who haven't come out to their family and/or friends as just the act of returning home to old wounds (and a place where you must push that part of you deep down), can be traumatic.

Fittingly, two brand new films releasing onto streaming platforms the day before Thanksgiving tackle the hopes and fears of coming out head-on, first in co-writer and director Clea DuVall's comedy "Happiest Season," which takes place during Christmas week, and the second, which is primarily set at a funeral nearly fifty years ago in writer-director Alan Ball's drama "Uncle Frank." 

An earnest and affable lightweight comedy that – thanks to its dynamic cast of Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Dan Levy, Mary Steenburgen, Aubrey Plaza, and Alison Brie – has quickly become one of the most anticipated holiday releases of 2020, "Happiest Season," plays like an overlong, sweet yet slightly stale sitcom.

Impulsively inviting her beloved partner Abby (Stewart) home for the holidays during a romantic evening out, it's only once they're in the car heading towards Harper's (Davis) family home that she confesses that she's actually never told her parents and two sisters that she's gay. Although initially shocked, Abby agrees to play the orphan roommate with no place to go since the charade will only last five days. Predictably, however, things get out of hand almost as soon as they arrive when Harper's parents (Steenburgen and Victor Garber) try reuniting her with her high school boyfriend (Jake McDorman), only for the women to bump into Harper's first-ever girlfriend (Plaza) less than five minutes later as well.

Cliched and largely laughless, as novel and (incredibly) welcome as it is to watch a gay-themed movie jump through the same formulaic hoops that we so often see in made-for-cable-television holiday romances this time of year, sadly, "Happiest Season" is a work to admire and politely smile through more than it is one to wholeheartedly enjoy. From a scene that finds Stewart literally stuck in a closet to another one that features her best friend, "Schitt's Creek" co-creator and star Dan Levy calling to ask where he could buy a lookalike fish to replace the one that we gather the inexperienced pet sitter has accidentally killed, a majority of the movie's jokes feel as tired as they do uninspired. 

Daring to make Harper a flawed and selfish protagonist whom we discover will lie to anyone to conceal her true sexual identity, "Happiest Season" gets points for working in a startlingly sad backstory surrounding her relationship with Plaza's Riley, although their characters are shortchanged a vital conversation where they can truly clear the air.

Wrapping things up in a neat bow, even if there are a few other scenes and discussions between our main ensemble cast of characters that might've strengthened the film as something more human and true than it is a largely cookie-cutter, small screen style comedy, the actors are all terrific. Unfortunately, DuVall and co-writer/co-star Mary Holland's script, which leaves much to be desired, doesn't know how to use them properly. Nonetheless, a mildly pleasant holiday diversion that you can digest right along with your pumpkin pie, even if it isn't a new repeat-worthy holiday classic, hopefully, Hulu's "Happiest Season" will earn enough viewers that we'll see some stronger, funnier LGBTQ comedies in the years to come.

Less of a holiday-centric offering than it is an offering served up for viewers during the holidays on Amazon Prime, "Uncle Frank" is a heartfelt period drama from writer-director Alan Ball that, in addition to sharing the same theme of coming out to one's family that we saw in "Happiest Season," rivals DuVall's film in terms of its enviable, first-rate cast. 

Led by the versatile, acclaimed "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," "The Da Vinci Code," and "Margin Call" actor Paul Bettany as the titular Uncle Frank, Ball's film is a who's who of scene-stealing character actors, including audience favorites Steve Zahn, Margo Martindale, and Judy Greer.

The apple of the eye of his niece Beth ("It" franchise and "Sharp Objects" star Sophia Lillis), Frank Bledsoe (Bettany) has traded his conservative, small-town South Carolina roots for New York where he works as an English professor at NYU in the late 1960s/early '70s. Following in his footsteps by attending NYU, Beth soon learns that although her uncle puts on a great show with a lesbian friend posing as his live-in girlfriend, he's actually been in a relationship with his sweet, funny Middle Eastern boyfriend Walid aka Wally (played by Peter Macdissi) for the past ten years.

Forced to return home for the funeral of his own disapproving father (Stephen Root), whom we deduce most likely knew the truth about his son's sexual orientation before anyone else, Frank drives Beth down to South Carolina. Determined to be there to support the love of his life because he knows just how much trauma will be waiting for him in the south, Wally trails behind the pair and soon joins them on the road trip, which becomes a journey into Frank's past. 

A film that's as much about Frank's need to finally let the people he loves into that part of himself that he keeps hidden as it is about his need to forgive himself and make peace with a devastating turn of events in his past for which he still feels responsible, while "Happiest Season" addressed past transgressions too, this film is vastly more sincere overall. Though still bursting at the seams with cliches and contrivances that should be far beyond the otherwise amazingly talented Ball (whose explorations into human behavior made "Six Feet Under" one of HBO's best twenty-first-century shows), thanks to the conviction and pathos of its top-notch leads, "Uncle Frank" works much better than it should.

Hindered by a rushed final act that races through an emotional payoff that it doesn't fully earn, as wonderful as it always is to see Bettany in something new that pushes him beyond his work in the Marvel franchise, the real heart of "Uncle Frank" is in Peter Macdissi's performance as Wally. Elevating an otherwise stereotypical role as the tormented Frank's saintly boyfriend, Macdissi's magnetic, cheeky delivery of certain lines – such as when he lectures Beth that niceness is used by her family to hide things – immediately wins us over. Likewise, in just one scene where he calls his mother back in Saudi Arabia from a motel phone booth, which is contrasted by Frank's return back to the motel with Beth after a wake, we realize how much more interesting the film might've been if we'd been following not Frank but Wally all along.

Disappointingly, you can nearly set your watch to certain revelations that seem to hit at precisely the same intervals that most screenwriters well-versed in the Syd Field three-act structure will recognize. However, the film's tenderness and its message about the importance of acceptance and the way that we never fully get over the traumas that inadvertently shape us for better and/or worse still feels timely nearly fifty years after the film is set, as we watch this today in Trump's America. 

Comparing the two films, which I watched back to back, "Uncle Frank" is a much more solid and substantive work than "Happiest Season," even if it isn't nearly as light, airy, and easily digestible as Clea DuVall's comedy. While both films fail to push much past the bar of average overall, they still feel well-timed to their pre-holiday release, especially this year when we especially need entertainment during the pandemic. Perhaps more willing than ever to look past their shortcomings amid 2020's wrath, hopefully, these films will find an audience in viewers who either relate to their characters' struggles to let others see them as they really are or are eager to celebrate their willingness to do as the Christmas carol says and make the yuletide (a bit more) gay. 'Tis the season, after all.

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Inkheart (2009)

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Much like Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder described his role as "I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude," director Iain Softley's Inkheart is a movie that plays off a book disguised as another book.

Upon its publication in 2004, bestselling author Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, spent "a total of 70 weeks on the [New York Times Bestseller] list" and was "translated into 37 languages." The first cinematic entry of her Inkwork trilogy-- Softley's film arrives in theatres today as a light snack for those awaiting the postponed release of the next installment of Harry Potter on the big screen this summer.

Originally a New Line Cinema presentation, now releasing domestically from Warner Brothers a.k.a. the same two studios responsible for both the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises, Inkheart seems like a natural fit for the production of a children's fantasy tale about characters dubbed "Silvertongues" who have the ability to bring the characters and events from the books they read aloud to life.

Obviously, the film and its original book by Cornelia Funke is meant as a celebration of children's literature, individual imagination, and the importance of parents reading books aloud to their children. However, nonetheless these valuable and worthwhile messages get a bit muddled via the contradictions of the plot which finds largely danger and unhappiness exiting the pages as characters vanish from the print and into our world in exchange for one of our own "humans" who get forced inside the binding to even out the transaction of fantasy switching into reality and vice versa.

The film begins as our hero Mortimer "Mo" Folchart (Brendan Fraser, upon whom Funke based the man) reads aloud to both his young daughter and loving wife, only to discover his cruel fate as a "Silvertongue" when his wife Resa disappears within the pages of Inkheart. Offering little in the way of an explanation as to his spouse's departure, we catch up with Mo several years later as the devoted book enthusiast and collector shares a love for the written word along with his now twelve year old daughter Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett).

Although Meggie finds it odd that her father has never read aloud to her, she accompanies him on his continuous search for the increasingly rare and mysteriously disappearing copies of Inkheart. Fairly quickly, Mo manages to stumble on both the book and a man he'd read out of the text (played by Paul Bettany) who's as eager to get back into the pages of the book to be reunited with his wife (played by Bettany's real life love Jennifer Connelly in a brief cameo) as Mo is to return his wife to civilization.

As the men clash over the book and both try to dodge that terrifying master villain of Inkheart's book, Capricorn (Andy Serkis), Mo is grudgingly forced to bring Meggie up to speed on his perilous gift, only to discover that perhaps it's a familial trait. Eager to get Meggie away from Capricorn's clutches so that Mo can continue on his plight to bring his wife back, he journeys to bring the girl to stay with her estranged great-aunt Elinor (played by Oscar winner Helen Mirren).

Mirren, who mentioned in the production notes that she sought inspiration for the role from the "poet Edith Sitwell, who is famously quoted as saying that her hobbies were 'reading, listening to music and silence.'" An eccentric near-recluse who lives vicariously through the many collectible literary works she houses in her large estate, Mirren adds a great deal of blunt wit to the film, visibly having a ball and gleefully injecting Inkheart with some unexpected bursts of humor.

Featuring terrific cinematography and special effects which ultimately up the obvious "wow" factor of the work, sadly while it's creative and pro-literacy, its mixed message about the dangers of reading and words in general may confuse the youngest audience members who will also miss out on the many subtle literary references, textual jokes, and become frightened by some of its dark intensity.

Moreover, as the plot develops, Softley's interpretation of the novel-- penned by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire-- Inkheart evolves into an overwhelming homage to The Wizard of Oz both structurally and as one of many literary references laced throughout (and coupled with Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Arabian Nights, etc.). Additionally, it feels all too familiar, borrowing elements for numerous fantasy tales including not only the aforementioned classic titles but other genre related works of the past where suddenly books, paintings, toys, and board games spring to life as in The Pagemaster, Jumanji, etc.

Therefore, in the end, it's the type of film that made me seriously wish I'd read Funke's book instead in that--as far as I can tell-- the entire "focus" has changed from the idea of the Inkheart book in the film to the grandeur of Inkheart the movie. Or to use Downey's train of thought, we're more impressed with the "dude" being played than we are by the "dude" playing him or the movie's spectacle verses the content itself.

More specifically, we aren't invested enough nor develop enough of an understanding about the "story" within the story to feel as though Mo's Inkheart was anything more than a kiddie version of a Hitchcockian MacGuffin or "sword in the stone," which kind of defeats the purpose in wanting to inspire us to get lost in books.

Perhaps the world of the Inkheart story is better explained in the novel but sadly, much like Softley's overly chilly rendition of The Wings of the Dove, it's hard to feel that moved by many of the characters who all seem a bit bland next to the special effects, aside from the refreshing change of pace for Mirren who nails the eccentric diva role perfectly.

Read the Books of Cornelia Funke

The Secret Life of Bees (2008)

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Although the standard reply of most critics is that we don't have to read a book to be able to judge a film since they're two separate entities, I must admit that upon walking into the press screening of The Secret Life of Bees, I was feeling guilty on three levels. Namely, still exhausted by too little sleep and too many film screenings during the week of our local film festival, I felt unprepared as a critic with only the vaguest idea of what the film was actually about. Additionally, secondly as a book lover, I was embarrassed that I hadn't been able to work Sue Monk Kidd's beloved novel in with my collegiate studies over the years. Likewise, thirdly as a woman and feminist, I didn't want to let down my loyal readers with an in-depth evaluation on how the film's writer/director-- the incredibly talented Gina Prince-Bythewood (who first impressed with her breakthrough film Love and Basketball) has translated the female-centric book to the screen.

Yet, in this particular case, I thought that my naivete may have actually helped more than it hindered as within moments of the film-- which begins with the most heartbreaking few minutes I've seen in cinema in 2008 so far-- my guess is that I wouldn't have been hit nearly as hard had I been holding the novel up for too close of an inspection. Like the film's young protagonist, Lily (Dakota Fanning), I became an eager participant in the world, metaphorically curling up at the feet of the film as if I were a child being told the most fascinating tale filled with tragedy, optimism and a plethora of memorable female characters that won't leave my mind-scape anytime soon.

Bees' cinematic origins developed initially as a a labor of love to all involved with the film including finding a champion in You've Got Mail and X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner and Fox Serachlight's Joe Pichirallo who'd helped bring Denzel Washington's directorial debut Antwone Fisher to audiences years earlier, along with joining forces with Will Smith and James Lassiter's Overbrook Entertainment, which ultimately led to Smith and especially his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith (who served as the executive producer) on the path to making sure the film would eventually find its way to the screen.

Yet much to my surprise, the woman who would ultimately end up penning and helming the work after years had passed and the producers had moved on-- Prince-Bythewood had been relatively late to finally picking up the novel herself. Having been sent it six years earlier, she found herself far "too exhausted to read it" after working on two directorial projects but when family and friends kept building the hype and raving about Sue Monk Kidd's bestseller, finally five years later she picked it up and an instant fan, regretted that she'd possibly "missed an opportunity to be involved."

However, fate played a hand and months later, Bees "was again sent to her for consideration," according to the press release and despite going up against other talents, they realized they'd found precisely the right filmmaker they'd wanted all along. Amazingly, the casting all worked out to their advantage as well, when Fanning-- everyone's "unanimous favorite" signed on, along with Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson in the first real role to show her acting chops, a pitch-perfect embodiment of Kidd's matriarch, Queen Latifah, an against-type Paul Bettany as Lily's brutal, violent father, a touching turn by Oscar nominee Sophie Okonedo as the childlike May (reminiscent of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men's George and some of the characters from To Kill A Mockingbird's landscape), as well as singer Alicia Keys.

A project that had been close to Keys' heart for years as she'd actually reached out to the producers personally to share her passion and desire for involvement, according to the press release, Prince-Bythewood was admittedly apprehensive as it was only going to be the Grammy winner's third time appearing onscreen. Yet, again the book is what brought them all together when Keys personally chose that exact book for a "Reading is Fundamental" public service announcement.

While undeniably, Prince-Bythewood's had the most difficult role in translating the novel to the screen, in my opinion, the success of the entire film depended entirely on its ensemble cast. I was gripped from the start as in a horrific flashback, we witness the four year old Lily accidentally killing her mother when a gun falls to the floor during a fight between her parents. Holding in the guilt of murder-- although it was unintentional, when we see Lily ten years later, her eyes hold the anguish we would expect. Working her father's peach-stand by day and trying to stay out of his way, Lily and her beloved nanny Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) end up fleeing their home in the 60's after Rosaleen is beaten and arrested for trying to vote when the civil rights act is passed.

With only a vague idea of where to go thanks to a precious few items left behind by her mother, they end up in Tiburon, South Carolina which appears in the background of the only remaining photo of Lily's mom. In tracing her maternal roots, the worldly and battle-scarred Lily and Rosaleen end up at the Pepto-Bismol colored home of August Boatwright (Queen Latifah). A beekeeper and honey-maker by trade who makes what's widely known as the best honey for miles, August and her two sisters, the militant highly educated feminist music teacher June (Alicia Keys) and the childlike mentally challenged and overly emotional May (Sophie Okonedo) end up taking the two young women in after the quick-thinking Lily feeds them one lie after another as you can see below.

"Who We Got Here?"

In a truly unprecedented tale for its time which finds the highly-educated, intelligent, compassionate and wealthy Boatwright women owning their own land and business, it's refreshing for a period film to provide fully realized characters for a predominantly African-American female cast as in most 60's tales, we seldom are told a story from their point-of-view and most routinely are shown ones that would've only been from Lily and her caretaker Rosaleen's.

While they're all uniformly excellent and Fanning gives her best performance to date-- really starting to come into her own as a remarkable young actress with extraordinary emotional depth-- I was especially moved by Okonedo's May. Of course, on the surface, most filmgoers would probably dismiss her character as simply "mentally challenged" or "disabled," as she feels things so much on such an intense personal level that she's created her own version of Israel's Wailing-Wall in her yard where she stores scraps of paper between rocks of the horrific goings-on. However, she seems to be the embodiment of the harsh reality of the era and its constantly weeping conscience of just what human beings can do to one another.

Latifah's instantly likable and winning charm pay off immensely, Keys slides easily into her tough-as-nails character as she calls the shots in her own relationship, Hudson has finally earned the lofty praise showered over her in her impressive (but far from Oscar worthy) debut in Dreamgirls, but in the end I'd be very shocked if Fanning, Okonedo and its compassionate filmmaker Prince-Bythewood weren't in Oscar contention.

A genuine three-tissue film where tears flow freely and feel far more earned than in the recent cheap shot, manipulative Nicholas Sparks' adaptation Nights in Rodanthe yet with more optimism and joy than the downright negative and stereotypical Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The Secret Life of Bees is far greater than one would assume if you've never read the book or are a man who tries to avoid female-centric films like the plague.

Not to mention with terrific craftsmanship from Dutch cinematographer Rogier Stoffers (Disturbia, Mongol, Lakeview Terrace), editor Terilyn A. Shopshire (Talk to Me, Eve's Bayou) and music by Mark Isham (Crash, The Express, Invincible), it's also one of the best of its kind since Mary Stuart Masterson's Idgie Threadgoode appeared on the scene in Jon Avnet's 1991 adaptation of Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes. Thus, The Secret is out-- whether or not you're in Monk Kidd's book club, Bees is a must see all the same with a Life all its own and a positive message of love and finding mothers and sisters in the unlikeliest of places. And in a world gone mad with negativity, there's nothing like a little honey for the soul to remind everyone to be a little nicer to one another.

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