I have a confession to make: sometimes, I watch Hallmark movies. Are there other things I want to watch more? Yes. Will those things drive my mother out of the room? Yes. And to be fair, she’d rather watch Walker: Texas Ranger reruns than a schmaltzy love story. But we need variety. Different kinds of cheese, if you will.
And let’s be honest, sometimes WTR is kinda cheesy.
Speaking of cheese, the best Hallmark movie I’ve seen recently is Savoring Paris, which is about a woman who goes off looking for the perfect cheese and finds love. Spoiler (I guess): it’s with the owner of the Parisian cheese shop. But my favorite part is that her “call to adventure” moment was tasting a bad sandwich. Not a herald delivering a dire message, not a wizard knocking her door, not fleeing ninja assassins. Nope. All it took was one, lousy, bite of Panera.
Literally a cheesy Hallmark movie.
Last month the Hallmark Channel did a whole series called Passport to Adventure with four movies filmed on location in beautiful European settings and centered around food: honey, cheese, olives, and gelato. And last week I watched them all. Well, “watched” is generous, since I also scrolled my phone and did some online shopping. Now I’ve got eight pounds of whey and casein protein powder on the way, because I’m still a bro.
Anyway, I’m not going to summarize the movies because you already know how they go.
Even if you’ve never seen one.
So why subject myself to such tripe? Willingly? Well there’s the obvious reasons, like most of the women are very attractive without being slutty about it. The exotic locations are even better. I also like food TV and can only watch so many cooking shows and Mom hates Somebody Feed Phil, and besides that I still want stories. Perhaps the acting and plots leave much to be desired, but they fill void like a light snack. And this gets us back to why we watch movies in the first place, and why a greeting card company is so successful in this space.
We crave escape.
Saturday, when I watched three of these in a row, I was feeling like a caged animal. The last thing anyone in my situation would want is a movie that reflects his or her life. I didn’t want to spend time with people who looked and acted like me, in a world as isolated as my own with all its social and political problems. No! Until recently, we watched movies to see people who were more attractive than us, interacting with other attractive people, doing the things we wish we could do. And doing them in a place we wish we could live. I’ve never fallen in love. Maybe I never will. I'll probably never travel abroad. But just like the citrus and herb gelato on the screen, I can imagine the taste.
We need less lesbian space witches and more heterosexual terrestrial couples in our lives.
Finally, let’s not discount the fact that Hallmark movies are still Stories, simple though they may be. I mentioned the “call to adventure” in Savoring Paris because I appreciated the unique spin on the traditional beat. I want to be a better writer and storyteller, and that means constantly reviewing the basic elements of story. This type of movie tends to be very predictable, which is its most charming feature. The average viewer can relax, following the flow of the narrative half asleep. The more Story attuned viewer can use it as a series of flashcards to remind himself of what makes a story tick.
There’s nothing subversive in a Hallmark movie. We never come away from one feeling tricked. Casablanca breaks our hearts because it doesn’t give us the traditional happy ending, and this is subversion done well because it’s justified. It’s not a trick. But this is a skill lost to most modern screenwriters. So if they can’t do that, the next best thing is to keep it simple and give the people what they want.
A happily ever after.
