Hallmark Hanukkah 2024
Dec. 16th, 2024 09:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI was greatly amused when ambyr, in their capacity as yuletide tag mod, contacted me a couple months ago in my capacity as local expert on Hallmark Hannukah movies, to adjudicate a tag spelling question. I am proud of my dubious skills.
Holiday Crashers
Two young women working at a greeting card store start stealing spare invitations to upscale holiday parties and assuming fake identities for the evening. Unlike Wedding Crashers, they seem more interested in the gift bags than the hookups, but they both find love interests while lying to them anyway.
Among the many Christmas parties, they crash a Hanukkah party, which is bizarre in that everything is blue and everyone is wearing color coordinated blue outfits.
Jews do not dance in this movie. I have nothing else to report.
Leah's Perfect Gift
Leah is Jewish, but in the sense of eating latkes on Hanukkah and going out for Chinese food on Christmas, not in the sense of having a religious connection to her faith. I try really hard not to judge this as a lesser kind of Judaism but sometimes I fail. Leah is living in Manhattan as an app developer and dating a culturally Christian junior banker from Connecticut who seems pretty boring even though Leah keeps talking about all the adventures they've had together.
Leah desperately wants to experience the idea of Christmas she has absorbed from movies and pop culture. Doing all of these cozy winter activities in a pretty, thematically decorated space, surrounded by a loving family sounds great to Leah, who has no siblings and has loving but kind of kooky parents who clearly don't attach great ritual significance to the holidays of her own heritage. So Leah is all in when her boyfriend invites her to spend Christmas with his family, even though he warns her vaguely that his parents are very particular about Christmas. Leah is more all in than anyone else in the movie. Leah is so excited about celebrating Christmas that it feels uncomfortable.
Graham's warnings about his family become more and more detailed, but far too late. Graham's mother needs every moment of their holiday observance to be done in a particular way, like a four inch spacing of ornaments on the tree - which is fine and is even kind of Jewish-feeling, but when I invite non-Jews to a Seder, I warn them that some parts of the ritual need to be done by very precise rules, and they should not be offended if I correct them. They should not be offended if I perform some of the setup myself because I know the way it has to be done. Graham doesn't do that! He just assumes Leah will play by his mother's rules and minimizes her feelings when she misses the cues, so that Leah becomes increasingly disoriented, and convinced that Graham's parents and possibly Graham don't want her there. One review of the film compares it to Get Out.
I was furious for Leah when Graham warns her right before dinner that his mother is a terrible cook and they always lie and pretend she makes good food. He had days to warn her to be prepared!
In the end, milquetoast Graham offers a milquetoast apology, his family comes on board, and they are engaged on Christmas day, which Graham somehow convinces her is a great way to start an interfaith marriage that is not beholden to Christian hegemony. Because they then ate Chinese food so it's all okay!
I was predisposed against this movie because I am not the biggest proponent of interfaith marriages, but I have friends in such marriages and they seem to find ways to find a balance that works for them, though it wouldn't work for me. So maybe my predisposition biased me, but I do not imagine this marriage as a functional partnership satisfying the religious needs of both partners, let alone the basic emotional needs. Also nobody dances, Jew or otherwise.
Hannukah on the Rocks
This was the movie I was actually looking forward to this year. Or maybe I should say pinning my hopes on.
And... it certainly was a big improvement! It had a Hanukkah nature to it, it was really interested in the lights and the eight day cycle as a mechanism for taking time to take stock of your life and figure out what needed attention. This idea extended well beyond the romantic leads, and I do like a romance where the B plots hold my interest and have a reason to exist.
The premise is that She is a high powered partner track corporate lawyer in Chicago suddenly laid off as part of a firm merger, who takes the opportunity to rethink whether corporate law is for her while moonlighting as a bartender at a local bar the regulars keep describing as a dive in spite of its visible lack of divy-ness. Then she meets Him, a Jewish doctor on vacation from Florida trying to convince his widowed grandfather to move to the Sunshine State. Together they transform the bar into a Hanukkah hotspot.
I was not entirely convinced by the chemistry or overall situation of the romantic leads- he's going to decide to move back to Chicago in the basis of one candlelit kiss? But it's a movie, by the creator of the similarly charming Hanukkah on Rye, that moves comfortably on warm family and found family vibes, this community of people who feel a little bit like outsiders and loners getting sucked into the experience of showing up at Rocky's every night to celebrate Hanukkah together.
My biggest complaint about this movie is about the Jews dancing. He asks her to dance. She accepts. Cut to commercial. What the fuck, Hallmark@!!#^&??!?
ambyr, in their capacity as yuletide tag mod, contacted me a couple months ago in my capacity as local expert on Hallmark Hannukah movies, to adjudicate a tag spelling question. I am proud of my dubious skills.Holiday Crashers
Two young women working at a greeting card store start stealing spare invitations to upscale holiday parties and assuming fake identities for the evening. Unlike Wedding Crashers, they seem more interested in the gift bags than the hookups, but they both find love interests while lying to them anyway.
Among the many Christmas parties, they crash a Hanukkah party, which is bizarre in that everything is blue and everyone is wearing color coordinated blue outfits.
Jews do not dance in this movie. I have nothing else to report.
Leah's Perfect Gift
Leah is Jewish, but in the sense of eating latkes on Hanukkah and going out for Chinese food on Christmas, not in the sense of having a religious connection to her faith. I try really hard not to judge this as a lesser kind of Judaism but sometimes I fail. Leah is living in Manhattan as an app developer and dating a culturally Christian junior banker from Connecticut who seems pretty boring even though Leah keeps talking about all the adventures they've had together.
Leah desperately wants to experience the idea of Christmas she has absorbed from movies and pop culture. Doing all of these cozy winter activities in a pretty, thematically decorated space, surrounded by a loving family sounds great to Leah, who has no siblings and has loving but kind of kooky parents who clearly don't attach great ritual significance to the holidays of her own heritage. So Leah is all in when her boyfriend invites her to spend Christmas with his family, even though he warns her vaguely that his parents are very particular about Christmas. Leah is more all in than anyone else in the movie. Leah is so excited about celebrating Christmas that it feels uncomfortable.
Graham's warnings about his family become more and more detailed, but far too late. Graham's mother needs every moment of their holiday observance to be done in a particular way, like a four inch spacing of ornaments on the tree - which is fine and is even kind of Jewish-feeling, but when I invite non-Jews to a Seder, I warn them that some parts of the ritual need to be done by very precise rules, and they should not be offended if I correct them. They should not be offended if I perform some of the setup myself because I know the way it has to be done. Graham doesn't do that! He just assumes Leah will play by his mother's rules and minimizes her feelings when she misses the cues, so that Leah becomes increasingly disoriented, and convinced that Graham's parents and possibly Graham don't want her there. One review of the film compares it to Get Out.
I was furious for Leah when Graham warns her right before dinner that his mother is a terrible cook and they always lie and pretend she makes good food. He had days to warn her to be prepared!
In the end, milquetoast Graham offers a milquetoast apology, his family comes on board, and they are engaged on Christmas day, which Graham somehow convinces her is a great way to start an interfaith marriage that is not beholden to Christian hegemony. Because they then ate Chinese food so it's all okay!
I was predisposed against this movie because I am not the biggest proponent of interfaith marriages, but I have friends in such marriages and they seem to find ways to find a balance that works for them, though it wouldn't work for me. So maybe my predisposition biased me, but I do not imagine this marriage as a functional partnership satisfying the religious needs of both partners, let alone the basic emotional needs. Also nobody dances, Jew or otherwise.
Hannukah on the Rocks
This was the movie I was actually looking forward to this year. Or maybe I should say pinning my hopes on.
And... it certainly was a big improvement! It had a Hanukkah nature to it, it was really interested in the lights and the eight day cycle as a mechanism for taking time to take stock of your life and figure out what needed attention. This idea extended well beyond the romantic leads, and I do like a romance where the B plots hold my interest and have a reason to exist.
The premise is that She is a high powered partner track corporate lawyer in Chicago suddenly laid off as part of a firm merger, who takes the opportunity to rethink whether corporate law is for her while moonlighting as a bartender at a local bar the regulars keep describing as a dive in spite of its visible lack of divy-ness. Then she meets Him, a Jewish doctor on vacation from Florida trying to convince his widowed grandfather to move to the Sunshine State. Together they transform the bar into a Hanukkah hotspot.
I was not entirely convinced by the chemistry or overall situation of the romantic leads- he's going to decide to move back to Chicago in the basis of one candlelit kiss? But it's a movie, by the creator of the similarly charming Hanukkah on Rye, that moves comfortably on warm family and found family vibes, this community of people who feel a little bit like outsiders and loners getting sucked into the experience of showing up at Rocky's every night to celebrate Hanukkah together.
My biggest complaint about this movie is about the Jews dancing. He asks her to dance. She accepts. Cut to commercial. What the fuck, Hallmark@!!#^&??!?
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-16 04:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-16 06:32 pm (UTC)FWIW I'm very enthusiastic about mixed marriages[1], but everything about this sounds absolutely terrible to me too.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-16 08:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-16 08:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-16 09:14 pm (UTC)Pretty sure the people who will be upset by mixed dancing are not watching Hallmark Hannukah specials, but who knows what shadows Corporate is jumping at.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-16 10:00 pm (UTC)Oh noooooo. (I laughed.)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-19 11:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-17 05:06 am (UTC)Outrage!!!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-19 11:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-30 04:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-31 06:04 pm (UTC)"Leah's Perfect Gift"
Date: 2025-01-01 03:41 pm (UTC)I am myself in a we-are-not-in-the-same-religion marriage, so, that's some context for why I don't have an internal barrier against such stories from the start. However, in general, I often don't love romcoms, because they so often depend on the characters communicating badly with each other, being in denial about obvious things, and so on, and that kind of behavior annoys me.
Like you, I was quite angry at Graham for not warning Leah sufficiently about his mother's preferences and his family's norms. I was unhappy with his sister as well on this matter. Graham and his sister surely had friends in the past who came in for Mom's ire, and realized that they would have to warn future visitors, in detail, about how to prevent criticism. They had SEVERAL days to give Leah specific advice on what to pack (e.g., "Mom will issue you pajamas so you don't need to bring any"), topics to avoid, likely activities to prepare for, good and bad gift ideas, family friends who would be allies or obstacles, and so on. Bleh!
Another lacuna to me: surely Leah has OTHER CHRISTIAN/WASPY FRIENDS she could be getting advice from. Leah grew up middle-class or higher in New York City, and probably went to a mainstream US university for a bachelor's degree. Even if she really has NEVER visited someone else's Christian home during Christmas, she almost certainly has other women in her circles she could be texting to ask "what should I wear/how normal is this/etc." instead of only asking her Jewish pal back home, Graham, and his sister. (And she could listen better when, for instance, Graham's sister starts trying to warn her off a particular course of action while building snowmen.)
junior banker from Connecticut -- you got this wrong. Graham is also in tech, I believe as a designer, and works in the same building as her (possibly at the same company?). His dad WANTS him to become a banker, but he doesn't want to.
One thing I found stretched credulity in this film was that, most of the time, neither Leah nor Graham, to me, acts like a software developer or designer. They do not demonstrate systematic problem-solving approaches. One exception: Leah thinking "ok, I can impress Graham's mom by decorating a gingerbread house well" and then watching several YouTube videos to learn that skill quickly.
I disagree that Leah's parents "clearly don't attach great ritual significance to the holidays of her own heritage" - making and sharing their holiday meal together clearly has a lot of ritual significance to them!
About 20? minutes from the end of the film, all of a sudden, people who had been predisposed against Leah start acting super nice to her (Graham's mom Barbara, and Graham's ex), and that didn't feel realistic. As though those characters finally realized/remembered "oh that's the main character, I'm supposed to like her and be nice to her."
And I watched the whole time for dancing because I thought of you, and after we watched the film, I showed my spouse "How to make a perfect Hanukkah movie…" for completeness.