Happiest Season's Clea Duvall and Mary Holland knew their queer love story had to have a happy ending

The history of queer movies—and in particular movies featuring two female protagonists who fall in love—is marked rather thoroughly with sadness, death, and wistful longing. More often than not in queer movies from years past, the main characters find that they can’t be together, torn asunder by family, society, and/or economics. And forget about finding holiday movies that both starred queer people and featured queer characters falling in love. Those just didn’t exist.

Fortunately, things are starting to change on that front. Both Lifetime and Hallmark have holiday movies airing this year featuring queer leads, and Hulu’s laid claim to Happiest Season, a heartwarming new rom-com starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis as a couple whose holiday plans are thrown into tumult once one reveals she’s still in the closet with her family.

The latter story, penned by Clea Duvall and Mary Holland—who also appears in the movie as Jane—is one of particular interest, both because of its star-packed cast and because of Duvall’s personal history inside the queer film canon, having starred in beloved films like But I’m A Cheerleader. In the clip above, The A.V. Club talks to Duvall and Holland about how Happiest Season works to give queer people a warm, romantic space in both holiday entertainment and during the holiday season as a whole.