VOLUME 19: A HALLMARK CHRISTMAS
Christmas, again. Cinema Year Zero count ourselves as sentimentalists, and have often used the holiday period as a fir to decorate our cinematic obsessions with. In past years we have delivered a symposium on the Richard Curtis film Love, Actually, and written our letters to Santa in A Christmas Wish. This year, we wanted to use Christmas as a way to get closer to film form.
The Hallmark film has become the most perennial piece of Christmas visual culture this side of the Coca-Cola advert. Yet, for a codified system which works autonomously within Hollywood, there is remarkably little serious attention paid to what we will argue, over the following six essays, is a genre.
As is our MO, each contributor has focussed on a single Hallmark film. Before you read them, please familiarise yourself with what we consider the essential tenets of the genre, or, the 12 Rules of Hallmark:
A Business woman. Your mind has already summoned her. She may be Alicia Witt, or Lacey Chabert, or increasingly Lindsay Lohan. An emotionally open, perceptive, but lost individual.
A Small town. Events will conspire to drag her back to the small town of her youth. The main road consisting of a gift shop, a diner, and a few friendly faces will be the film’s orbit. Kirsty Asher’s piece on Eve’s Christmas vividly explains these basics.
A Hunk. More often than not he looks like he’s been 3D printed, and is woefully lacking in personality and/or a soul.
Meet not-so-cute. We know it’s Christmas, but these guys are gonna hate each other at first. If they’re not colliding into each other haughtily, they’re on opposite sides of some Very Important local issue. Commence googly eyes.
Slumming former stars. A surprisingly stacked repertory players company will make up the supporting cast of each Hallmark film. Why do the likes of Julia Stiles and Danny Glover lower themselves to this level? Dog’s gotta eat. Ben Flanagan looks at Kelsey Grammer’s career as a synecdoche for this phenomenon as a whole.
Weird Christian values. ‘Tis the season. The cycle of life and death is a constant, even in these seemingly low stakes films. Redemptive births, hospital visits, and dying elderly relatives are as certain as taxes. Anna Devereux walks you through A Christmas Heart, and towards the light.
Straight white people. Look, this is cinematic Yankee Candles ok? Esmé Holden uncovers the few times Hallmark invited queer people into their very hetero world.
Questionable continuity. Unmatching establishing shots and lighting. Filmed in spring or even summer, stock footage. Rose Dymock’s key research finds a most unlikely English city standing in for Maine.
Children & animals. WC Fields once warned ‘never work with children or animals.’ Had he lived in the Hallmark age, the sight of just one lushious golden retriever may have caused him a retraction.
Godawful graphics. Attempting to cover up the spring/summer production schedule with the worst fake snow you’ve ever seen. Sparkles and glitter. Blue-screen backdrops that look like a 90s children’s TV show.
Hidden identities. Appearances are always deceiving in Hallmark movies—and not just because of the prevalence of filler and hair transplants. Amnesiac ex lovers, undercover celebrities (or princes!), and borderline incestuous couplings abound. Blaise Radley attempts to decipher the Harry Kane of it all in recent favourite Christmas in Notting Hill.
Hallmark didn’t produce it. Hallmark Entertainment has gone through several iterations, landing on the current cycle in around 2015.Thus, the Hallmark Movie is more of a vibe. Many titles produced by Lifetime and Netflix can be considered part of the genre.
This was a banner year for Cinema Year Zero. We sold out two film screenings in London in collaboration with Double Wonderful Events and Electric Blue + The Cinema Museum. We were an official partner of the inaugural Creative Nonfiction Weekender, an amazing documentary festival in East London. We produced two print zines, the latter designed by maestro Jeremy Arblaster. We even printed stickers. Most importantly we had the opportunity to collaborate with a range of generous and highly talented writers across four issues, each of whom continued to energise and challenge our critical practice. We want to thank you for reading, and particularly thank Patreon subscribers for continuing to support Cinema Year Zero, and promise to continue producing high-quality independent film criticism in 2025.
Cinema Year Zero Volume 19: A Hallmark Christmas.
Edited by Kirsty Asher, Ben Flanagan, Esmé Holden, Blaise Radley.
Contents:
Eve’s Christmas by Kirsty Asher
The Christmas Heart by Anna Devereux