This one is a mark of most Christmas movies, but it literally always happens in Hallmark movies. The ending consists of a couple kissing, everything being hearts and flowers and perfect, and then the film fades to black. Sometimes they even get married at the end and the implication is that they'll stay together forever.
The movies rarely has any drama between the romantic leads, leading you to believe that love is always the answer to happiness. By the end of the movie, you never get the impression that they are even representative of a real couple, let alone that things could go sour at all.
Most of the movies involve a man or woman that hates Christmas, or they’re too busy to remember the true meaning of the holiday. Over time, someone reminds them what Christmas is truly about family, helping others, love, and sappy romance. If only they had some cheesy Hallmark movies to watch...
Of course, that would be pretty meta though. But everyone knows what the Hallmark version of Christmas looks like, and regardless of what else people say about it, some people are just going to be sad or angry at Christmas and there's not always a fix for that. Knowing the meaning of Christmas doesn't cure holiday depression.
Every Hallmark movie is packed with heartwarming moments—in fact, we’d argue that that’s what they’re mostly about. The characters discovering the meaning of Christmas? Heartwarming. The ending where the characters kiss and everything is peachy? Heartwarming. It's one heartwarming moment after another. But where's the drama? There's never enough for an entertaining story.
Where's the sex, drugs and rock n' roll? People like to loosen up around the holidays, you know. People say Die Hard is a Christmas movie for a reason. The puritan lovefest happening in these movies is hardly relatable. Everyone is just perfect and nice and its just sick and sadistic to be quite frank.
The two characters need to be together, but they don’t see it! How will they ever get together? Thank goodness there’s a wise grandma, grandpa, mom, or dad that’s there to break it down for them. The young grasshoppers will learn that they’re in love thanks to this older person.
But in real life, older persons are not always wiser - they aren't always the most reliable sources of information. Sometimes you might have a racist grandpa who says inappropriate things when he gets drunk, a neglectful or abusive mom that you don't talk to anymore or whatever else. Not every elderly person is a wizard in real life.
Apparently, Hallmark movies take place somewhere that exclusively snows; no warm winters! Not to mention, there’s almost no slush anywhere. The town just lets it snow and snow and snow with zero cleanup on the streets or sidewalks. Everything is designed to look as picturesque as possible so you think Christmas at all times.
Everyone just wanders outside in the snow all willy nilly and doesn't complain about it one bit. Yeah it's cold as heck in the winter but Hallmark is gonna warm your heart so good, you won't even be able to notice it. In real life, you'd probably want to stay inside because it's warm but the characters in the movie can't do that because then the movie would feel claustrophobic.
Everyone in a Hallmark movie really knows how to decorate their Christmas tree. In fact, you’d think they’re all professional decorators. They’re also super lavish. The trees are thick and full—something that’s pretty hard to find in real life unless you’re willing to shell out big bucks.
You need to be reminded that you are watching a Christmas movie again and again so that you can forgive the fact that the movie is terrible - because somehow the fact that the movie is a Christmas movie, makes you forgive the low-quality script and unbelievable characters. Nothing is real. Not even the trees, so why pretend otherwise?
The product placement in Hallmark movies is insane. We really don’t need that close-up of Folgers or a million shots of a Ford pulling into the driveway. It helps bring in money, but really? The directors and producers couldn’t be a little less obvious? Sometimes it's so shameless, we can hardly believe it.
However, at the same time, it always takes you out of the movie a bit when there are products the filmmakers don't have permission to use, and then there ends up being some jarring knock-off version of Cornflakes or Kitchen Aid Mixer. There has to be a way to tastefully product place but the filmmakers of Hallmark haven't quite figured it out yet.
How much hypothetical tax money goes toward decorating Hallmark towns during Christmas? The towns are decorated so well that it’s obvious that a professional designer stepped in. In short, it’s unrealistically ridiculous. Are we in an actual town or are we at Disneyland? That is Disneyland for people who want to be bored out of their minds.
And honestly perfect decorating everywhere at Christmas time would pretty much destroy Christmas. The holiday is commercialized enough that it doesn't need to be filled with extravagant light displays on every building. Some things are perfect in their imperfection. Don't go for perfect, go for whimsy. That's just my opinion anyway.
What would a Hallmark Christmas movie be if the in-laws loved their son or daughter’s significant other? Many of their films center around one of the main characters getting the in-laws to like them. We understand that it’s hard to find someone good enough for your kid, but it wouldn’t ruin the movie if the in-laws got along with the new husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend.
Not all in-law relationships are bad. Not every parent hates their kid's spouse and thinks nobody will ever be good enough for them. And sure sometimes, mom and dad can be right if they do but in a Hallmark movie - that's usually not quite the case. Anyway, it's a tired cliche and let's move on from it.
You can’t have heartwarming moments without extreme sadness. Actors are required to cry as much as possible over something like a dead spouse. The actors can cry on point without issues, and we’re beginning to wonder if a Hallmark movie dehydrates them. And while they execute crying, it's almost to the point of being overdone.
The crying is rarely believable as the actors are not always great. The tears may be real but the emotion just isn't there. I don't believe these people are hurting, at least insofar as the characters in the movie. The actors may be crying at how bad the scripts are but that's a different story.
