A Hallmark Christmas Film Review

By Emily Miller

Everyone knows how Hallmark Christmas movies go even if they’ve never seen one before. A small town girl who owns a bakery comes across a big city hotshot man who wants to shut down her business just before the town Christmas baking competition. Then, the two fall in love and win the Christmas baking competition together. There are jokes galore on social media about the predictability of Hallmark Christmas movie plots, and yet they attract a plethora of viewers every year. So, what is the appeal?

Vanguard students familiar with Hallmark Christmas movies have the answer. Hannah Brown, a current senior at Vanguard University, says “I think they’re cheesy, but they’re so cheesy that you want it! Being in a Hallmark movie would be so great! You watch the movie like ‘Oh, this would never happen,’ but it’s also something you want to happen. You’d be living out all your inner desires.”

With this in mind, I conducted a film review and analysis of two Hallmark Christmas movies: The Christmas Ornament and A Majestic Christmas. Having never watched one myself, I thought I knew what to expect: a predictable plot, cheesy dialogue, unrealistic romance, etc.—and I was correct. However, I still found myself becoming invested.

The Christmas Ornament, directed by Mark Jean, follows young widow Kathy Howard (Kellie Martin) during her first Christmas season without her husband Scott due to his death earlier in the year. Kathy starts the movie opposed to participating in Christmas festivities, because Scott was an enthusiastic lover of Christmas. However, upon meeting and falling in love with the local Christmas tree lot owner, Tim Pierce (Cameron Mathison), she not only finds the Christmas spirit again, but she finds the strength to let the past go and follow her dreams of opening her own Christmas cookie business. 

Despite my initial cynicism, I enjoyed watching this movie for what it is. After Kathy meets Tim for the first time and they talk about the struggles of owning a business (with little to no chemistry between them), her best friend Jenna (Jewel Staite) immediately accuses her of flirting with him and pushes her to start giving love another chance. However, Kathy’s husband died less than a year ago. I found this timeline to be extremely rushed, but it’s Hallmark; what do you expect? As the two fell in love, they had a playful snowball fight together, they exchanged Christmas ornaments (which she used to do with Scott), and he gave her a wreath made of mittens since she always loses her mittens. The whole love story was completely unrealistic and cheesy, yet heartwarmingly cute. Cheesiness aside, what really made this movie for me was a side character named Connor (Brendan Meyer). Connor is Tim’s teenage nephew and an enthusiastic tour guide at the tree lot who seems to have passionately memorized the Wikipedia page on every species of Christmas tree. Connor is clearly the true star of this show, and Meyer’s acting performance surpassed that of the leading actors by a comfortable margin. 

A Majestic Christmas, directed by Pat Kiely, follows architect Nell (Jerrika Hinton) and her client Connor (Christian Vincent) at the festive small town of Briar Falls. Connor wants to tear down the historic Majestic Theater, where the town holds their annual Christmas pageant, for a modern multiplex. Nell, who grew up in Briar Falls, loves Christmas, and has a passion for restoring historic buildings, hopes that bringing him to the town’s Christmas festivities will change his mind on the project and renew his Christmas spirit. In typical Hallmark fashion, they end up falling in love, and Connor decides to let Nell restore the building rather than tear it down. 

Unlike The Christmas Ornament, the lead actors actually had a lot of chemistry, which certainly assisted my suspension of disbelief while viewing. Since it is a Hallmark movie, many aspects of this movie made the suspension of disbelief necessary. For example, why would Nell work for a firm whose specialty is tearing down historic buildings in favor of sleek, modern architecture if that’s the opposite of what she wants to do? I noticed more patterns in Hallmark movies that I hadn’t been aware of before: everyone in the town will refer to the lead characters as “you two” even when they’ve barely met, and there is always at least one side character carrying the movie. In A Majestic Christmas, it was Barry (Christopher Hayes). This man takes the town’s Christmas traditions to a “Dwight Schrute from The Office” level of seriousness. Out of hatred for Connor’s project, he made anti-Connor hats and light-up shirts for the whole town to wear. The most enjoyable parts of the movie by far are when he is forced to (begrudgingly) award Connor first place in multiple Christmas competitions. Barry may be a Christmas extremist, but that does not keep him from being an impartial judge, and I love him for it. 

Even though the movies were certainly as cheesy and predictable as I thought, that did not keep me from enjoying the experience for what it was. I realized that the point of Hallmark Christmas movies is not to watch a reflection of reality, but instead to escape it altogether. Who wouldn’t want to live in a cute little town where everyone celebrates Christmas together, there’s an abundance of Christmas cookies, and you’re destined to live happily ever after with the love of your life?