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Before the proposal of this Christmas edition of CYZ came to my email earlier this fall, I happened to come across a video on TikTok made by user @livgrace_x. It had the caption “If you live in Liverpool.. wait for the end…”. In the video, a man is able to more than just sight; he is able to capture the entire keyboard whilst recording. A sentence is also displayed on the screen reading “So I found this Christmas movie. Which is set in MAINE (wait for it)”.
The name of the movie is Deck the Heart (2021). It is a Christmas movie and as most of those movies, this one also had an unimaginably easy plot. As the name suggests, it is a low budget Hallmark movie. A gentleman is compelled to go back to his family town because he has to spend Christmas there. The twist here is that he actually has to do this because he is the benefactor in his grandfather’s unique will. The twist does not end there, he also falls in love with the event organizer he employed to help him with the big day.
The only thing that is different from what I expect, at least in my opinion, is the casting of Al Sapienza, who plays Mikey Palmice in ten episodes of The Sopranos, as a small supporting character in this movie. The character is a small town lawyer who takes care of the (rather unconventional) clauses of the will.
So the movie goes like this: a rather unremarkable handsome white man sporting a rather stylish business haircut is approached by a fireman who claims, in an awkward manner that suggests it may be his first and last time onscreen, that they are waiting for a tow truck to come and remove some debris from the road – that he would do best by waiting at the local strip mall instead.
Now because this is a movie, as @livgrace_x was particularly keen to point out, took place in rural Maine, the cut into stock footage of Liverpool’s Lord Street followed by the Liverpool One shopping centre is a bit of a jolt to the system even for those who are completely unfamiliar with the place. The city of Liverpool gets a lot of screen time, often standing in for London in Peaky Blinders (2013-22) and New York in Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) or even Gotham City in The Batman (2022). If you know when and where to look, you too can revel in a glimpse of Bruce Wayne swan diving off the Liver Building. It’s an adaption, flexible, versatile city but one whose own story has its deep rich seam of film history from the very dawn of cinema.
In 1896, Alexandre Promio filmed Liverpool Scenes (1896) for the Lumiere Brothers which showcased the famous buildings of a major city in the late 19th century, as well as its lively ports and the now defunct Overhead Railway.
Deck the Heart has no mentionable scenery setting for Liverpool, but there is a clear transition from a small town in Maine to the bustling center of a city. An audience walks by Home Bargains, H&M, and The Perfume Shop by what are clean streets without Christmas decorations or snow. This is not the type of footage that should be playing in the background of a journalist giving an explanation on inflation increases. This is supposed to be shot nearly three thousand miles away in a Christmas film. This is not the only clip that has no context as Deck the Heart goes on to showcase what seems to be a big lake located in Italy claiming it to be part of the town. While it is not the most shocking one, the footage is by far the one that is the most disturbing.
North American’s have a unique way to showcase Hallmark Christmas films. The modest plot diversions surrounding the sole-purpose heterosexual couple ending serves as optimistic inspiration for predominantly female audiences.
For a chance to get back together with an ex-lover or pursue a new romance, people decide to throw away their careers or at least pause them. The characters in the movies celebrate holidays like Christmas in the towns of their childhoods. There is always some kind of gathering with the more than appropriate list of odd people. The get-togethers are always festive, lively, and well-prepared. The dinners are long, for a reason or another. There is also the constant hustle and bustle of the big cities crowning the serene and slow-paced life of the countryside.
The simple fact that an entire movie is based around the seemingly ordinary concept of love, simply does not sit well with me even more so when this type of motion picture is advertised worldwide. This approach just sounds absurd and impossible as something that could originate from the UK, known for its cynicism which serves as a twist to the otherwise fantastical storyline. The characters spend no time embellishing reality, unlike most American movies out there which is as heartwarming as realistic love and embrace the bitter sweet ending. Love Actually is one of the popular British Christmas films which offers the comforting feeling of a joyful ending while exploring the conflicts and betrayal amid an affair. Something English people bear with but American ones whine about. Hallmark films avoid this entire reconsideration of the franchise.What I would do for some British Christmas films that, even if not entirely realistic, at least made an effort to resemble this country in one way or another. They would not be precisely Hallmark, but still a little too unbearably cringe. The type of film that you watch while tipsy on a late night or during the decoration putting up process. I want a Christmas film set in Liverpool: cast from competing corporations attend chaotic work dos at Woody’s and bond over inebriated Total Eclipse of the Heart sing-alongs. Falling in love while trying to escape the city’s red and blue Santa outfit clad “Rudolphs” running rampant. I want emotional ‘I love you’s’ at Liverpool John Lennon airport and fake snow on Crosby beach.
Or for a new tried and tested Hallmark formula how about this one: a career woman has to ditch the lifestyle of Birmingham and come back to the small Black Country town a few miles down the road, because apparently like every Christmas movie out there with a moral – she has to learn the meaning of Christmas. And now she has to plan the Town Christmas celebrations, big light switch-on attended by the mayor who is quite unknown to the people, as town mayors have next to no power here, and some contestants from Britain’s Got Talent.
The Nativity! series comes as close as possible to making a British Hallmark movie. The first one, which featured a pre-Sherlock Martin Freeman, was set and filmed mostly in Coventry. It had a different approach and focused on a bitter primary school teacher and bringing back the meaning Christmas, instead of romance. The succeeding ones included bigger, more dependable names like David Tennant, Jason Watkins, and Celia Imrie, and they relied on more outrageous plotlines with terrible reviews and box office results. Hallmark films do not have this problem since they never attract big-name actors. In the US, they have a dedicated TV channel where they solely air on without a care in the world.
Fans of Nativity! know how bizarrely ambitious the plots of the show are. Although, considering its British roots, they are still rather modest. From underfunded schools going up against their privately funded opponents to an anxious teacher trying to outperform a highly successful sibling; we root for the underdogs to pull off the impossible.
So, if a Hallmark movie depicts an idealized scenario in which Christmas is always perfect, we are more than willing to suspend our disbelief if the setting is Coventry as opposed to a wintery Maine.
This narrow-window renaissance could try following the route of ‘The Nativity!’ Series, which is a mix of mild success, immediate escalation, drastic downfall, and perhaps, many years later, an online magazine re-evaluating it critically. I still want fun and romance with a wonderful plot that’s utterly foolish to the point where you could use it as a present, but with the hint of dark sadness that makes you want to watch the eastenders Christmas episode as it’s gloomy with a hint of softer lighting alongside the trademark red and green. Something like that would certainly do us all some good.
Hallmark movies, alongside their bigger-budget cousins, the Netflix originals, are becoming increasingly popular in Britain. They’re especially popular regardless of the context of American life itself. It’s this illusionary gap that separates Britain from America that seems to elevate its holder. And let’s be honest, overwhelmingly sweet romances and soft-focus, unabashed optimism just don’t work in a country so devoted to its self-inflicted misery.
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