By Jared Rasic
This is the time of year when I start watching Christmas movies with gleeful and reckless abandon…quality be damned. It doesn’t matter if it’s good because, ultimately, most of those Hallmark movies (or the new Netflix variant) have the same structure and story arc with only a few mild variations.
The quality is relative to exactly what you want out of the movies because you’re not getting a masterpiece no matter what. If you’re shooting for something optimistic and filled with a specifically “American” sort of cheer that desperately tries to get the audience to feel a special warmth in some way…then look no further.
Usually, a redheaded (sometimes brunette) professional woman from the evil big city has to go to a small town either for A) something involving money, B) it’s her hometown, and she has unfinished business or C) she has been cheated on (usually by a blonde guy) and wants to reinvent herself. She’s usually some variation on spoiled, rich, and spoiled or just generally jaded from either heartbreak or money.
When she arrives in the small town (invariably named something like Hope Falls, Chester’s Landing, or Sycamore Downs), she’s rude to everyone at first since she only plans to remain for a short while to take care of specific and time-sensitive business. Even as she pines for her old life in the skyscrapers of NYC or the valleys of L.A., she opens up to an old innkeeper/bartender/bookstore owner who introduces her to a handsome local handyman/carpenter/woodcutter.
He’s dark-haired with multiple flannel shirts and only wears blue jeans, has perfectly manicured stubble, and has either A) never left Sycamore Landing or B) gone to the big city for some schoolin’ and then realized everything he ever needed was back home. He’s smarter than he looks in a hyper-masculine way and capable of a great depth of emotion.
At first, they annoy the hell out of each other because she’s rude and cynical, and he’s naive and simple. You know where this goes: they fall in love, she does something hurtful (usually a white lie of some kind), they fight, she feels bad and makes a grand gesture of some sort by A) saving his bookstore, B) saving the whole town or C) saving Christmas. The film ends with them kissing under the stars, surrounded by lights as the town looks on, smiling and excited that the mean lady is now perfectly assimilated and one of them.
It’s a fundamental and repetitive formula, but it is the perfect thing to have on television if you’re looking for something to remind you how the holidays make some people feel, even if you’re struggling to find that feeling yourself. The films are also the perfect choice if you’re with family members and are desperate to avoid discussing politics. Recently, I watched two Hallmark-like romantic dramedies on Netflix that did precisely what I expected, but they also managed to be entertainingly ridiculous and fun.
The first one is “Hot Frosty,” which follows a young widow who falls in love with a shredded, hunky snowman come to life. That’s the plot. It’s campy, goofy, and good-natured, which might be all it was trying to do. It’s not sexy because Hallmark and Hallmark-like movies cannot generate that level of sexual tension, but it’s cute and got me in the mood to watch more Christmas movies.
I followed that one up with “The Merry Gentlemen,” which I watched because it sounded like Hallmark trying to remake “Magic Mike,” but Christmas-themed, and I’m there for it. This movie follows a Broadway dancer who comes back to her hometown of, let me check, yep, Sycamore Creek, where she steps up (see what I did there) to help save her parent’s struggling music venue, The Rhythm Room. Along with a local handyman and a few other shredded dudes, she starts a sexy, Christmas-themed dance show to titillate the local women and raise some cash for her mom and dad. It’s pretty adorable, and with Britt Robertson and Chad Michael Murray starring, it’s well-acted and genuinely charming.
I’m not saying Hallmark movies are good, and I’m definitely not saying the Netflix ripoffs of Hallmark movies are any better, but just for a moment, I found myself feeling the Christmas spirit and looking forward to all the cheesiness the season brings. I’m not sure these movies themselves earn the emotions they raise, but maybe as long as you’re feeling it, where the cheesy warmth comes from doesn’t matter so much.
