T&K's XMas (2023) Advent Calendar: Day 6 - A Heidelberg Holiday

Foreward: this is my first Hallmark watch of the season, watched on December 4. I burned out on Hallmarkies last year and thought that my touristy passion for journeying into the commercial heart of Christmas was dead. The plan was for my side of the Advent Calendar to do all real movies this year... but Toasty's early foray and enthusiasm for the 'markies kind of kickstarted something in me.

So I went back to the Deck The Hallmark podacast and listened to their XMas 2023 preview episodes and started making lists. Then, like in previous years, I started perusing other sources to see what Non-Hallmark Hallmarkies were happening this year.

To my surprise there's definitely less this year than in previous years. In some cases a lot less. This year there are only(!) 27 new Hallmark movies for the season (40-ish has been the norm in recent years) and only 12 new Lifetime movies (they had 26 last year and 35 the year before, so it's scant for them this year). When you realize that many of these movies are written and shot within weeks of each other then stockpiled for the end of year (or that some don't even begin shooting until the season begins) you see the impact the writers' strike and actors' strike has had on the Christmas movie industry.  That's a good thing though. I found it much easier to get through the list this year. 

I was still hoping to scale back my investment in Hallmarkies, but I'm back to binge listening to Deck the Hallmark and "the Christmas Zaddy Minute" feature on Maximum Film which is piquing my interest on things I really shouldn't be giving a crap about...

2023, d. Maclain Nelson - Hallmark

 The Draw:
One of my favourite film critics is also a big-time Christmas junkie, and consumes as much of the Hallmarkie content as he does hoity-toity cinemah. If "Christmas Zaddy" Alonso Duralde (of Breakfast All Day, Lenoleum Knife, Maximum Film, Deck the Hallmark) can find a balance between this crap and good stuff, so can I. Anyway, he said this was a good one. 

HERstory: 
Heidi Heidelberg is an ornament maker, specializing in 12 Days of Christmas bobbles, blowing her own glass (recycled) and painting them by hand. She's applied to the Heidelberger Weihnachtsmarkt (a real thing) four years in a row, and been rejected four years in a row. And I see why, but so does she (her mom is mom blind). She's living and working out of her parents' place and despite selling at markets all across the country, she's got dreams and aspirations of going to the most prestigious Christmas market in her namesake locale (or, as the actual website so proudly exclaims, "one of the most beautiful Christmas markets in Germany"). It's obviously a personal goal, not a professional one. Except, when someone drops out her Omma, with some connections to the old country, has pulled some strings. She's also found Heidi some lodgings that are most certainly in Germany, and not Canada somewhere (I'm being sarcastic, but wait for it...).

is this good?

Shipping her wares on short notice to Germany would cost almost as much as the value of them, so she takes a tip from the shipping guy about a very dodgy sounding upstart ("the lesser known of the UPSes, "Universal Private Shipping") who will "do their darnedest" to get them there by the first week of December. She at least gets insurance on them, and tracking. But this is the anchor that holds the whole story down.

Smash cut to...holy shit! actual Germany (the film is actually a German co-production). A misunderstanding with the cabbie leads to Heidi getting dropped off at the bottom of the hill on a cobblestone street, 50 houses from her residence with three awkward bags. A charming German stranger, Lukas, chats her up congenially and offers help, and learns she is staying at his parents. They are "extra" according to Lukas, and insist upon soup and wine and joining their lighting of the first candle. Heidi learns all about German holiday traditions from Lukas' family (so we all do too). 

Holy scheisse, actual Deutschland! 

Lukas is asked to take a break from his family business of woodworking and furniture repairs to escort her to her booth in the morning, and honestly, it's pretty gorgeous.  I keep trying to pick apart the shots, looking for composite footage cotton batting, but it's a pretty solid looking, overcast, late wintery looking environment.  Lucas helps Heidi get set up, and people look, but Lucas advises Heidi that her American folksiness is too abrasive for German consumers. German shoppers browse and ruminate and plan their purchases conscientiously.

Lucas' sister Teresa takes Heidi on an eating tour of the town square and market and she leaves her booth until after dark...but still making sales thanks to a QR code on her booth sign (as will happen through most of the story). The next day she enlists Lukas' help to pick up her "UPS" shipment and the caustic German postal worker, Herr Wiedmann, tells her that her boxes are stuck in customs in Iceland until Thursday.  Lukas helps talk Heidi through her panic.

They visit Heidelberg Castle, and they could have just spent the whole movie touring the castle...as is, it's just a lot of quick cuts of "look at this!" (You can tell they weren't given much time to shoot there). Lukas tells Heidi about how he studied art, but he was handed the reigns to the family business and has no time or energy to pursue his passion. The woodworking business has been run by four generations and is much esteemed nationwide, and Lukas feels the pressure of maintaining his legacy, even if it doesn't fulfill him. 

On St. Nicholas Day Heidi gets a previously foreshadowed romantic gesture, but unsigned. Lukas is uncomfortable, largely because it's not from him (it's never actually resolved whom it is from, but suspect it's Lukas' parents who have been trying to fix him up for years).  A return visit to the post office and the dodgy UPS shipment is delayed another week.  Lukas' family is hosting a charitable dinner for seniors with no place for dinner at Christmas, and Heidi offers to get gifts for the guests, soliciting donations from the booths at the market with Lukas. 

Montage.

Back to the post office where Herr Weidmann has proven to be one of the best-ever side characters in a Hallmarkie (he's like Bronson Pinchot in Beverly Hills Cop, bringing so much to so very little). He informs Heidi of the bad news that her shipment is now delayed in customs in Ireland.  Heidi and Lukas visit some of her grandmother's favourite places, express feelings for each other, and kiss.

A quick series of catch up on various threads like receiving word that the shipment will be arriving soon, and the seniors dinner before an early Christmas tree surprise for Heidi.  When her boxes do arrive, they are looking pretty battered and ... yeah, everything is broken. Everything, including Heidi's dreams, and her genuine affection for the customers who she is disappointing.

Heidi packs up to leave, and Lukas stops by and says all the right things. As she ponders leaving, she begins to fill one of Lukas' wood carvings with the broken shards of her ornaments.  She asks Lukas if he has more, and he has dozens.  The family is enlisted and they get a few pieces done. Heidi knows not everyone will be happy, but Lukas' parents are sure that most people will love them as a substitute.  They toil away together to finish all their pieces before the last day of the market. And Heidi has secured them both a booth for next year. 

are these good?

And just as she's closing out the booth Omma shows up, because Heidi is staying in Deutscheland for Christmas, and permanently, I guess. On Christmas, unwrapping presents, they Oppermanns gift Omma with a painting her grandmother made that hung in a local Church for decades. Wouldn't it be more special if it just stayed there?

The Formulae:
Heidi's grandmother gives her a treasure hunt, to look at all her favourite childhood places. In another Hallmark, this would be the whole movie. But it's just one story here. 

Heidi having a booth, or spending time learning about German culture, or the mess with her wares, or getting to know Lukas, helping Lukas with his personal issues and encouraging his artistic passions, or setting up the seniors gala, or the fulfilling of the "stalking secrets" tradition... these would all be focal plots of another movie. The fact that they all happen in one film means that things move along at a much better pace, even if the exposition is still pretty clunky and some of the tertiary actors are ... not great. 

And there's lots of hot chocolate, plus the trope of meeting someone for a short time and making an absolute life commitment to them by the end of the movie. There's a Christmas tree decorating scene, but it's seconds long, rather than a whole set piece.

Unformulae:
Subtitles! An actual toddler at the dinner table just acting like a toddler.  Location shooting not in Canada. No Christmas deadlines (in fact Heidi is supposed to be back home for Christmas Eve), or rather, there's no ticking clock.  Even the third act complication is not one that is meant to interfere with the budding relationship, but instead is a very personal hurdle Heidi has to overcome and Lukas helps her through it. That never happens.  Plus, this all takes place over almost a full month, rather than the Hallmark norm of a few days, so Heidi and Lukas really get to know each other and that love does sort of blossom across the picture, rather than just seem like crushes that accelerate rapidly. Also the utter restraint on doing "lost in translation" jokes (there are a few, but not nearly enough to be annoying or cringey) was very welcome.

True Calling?
[In German] Yeah!

The Rewind: 
I really needed to pause on every shot of artwork, and, with the exception of the wood reliefs, I didn't really think they were that great...but, at the same time, definitely not even close to the worst representations of art or artistic things in a Hallmark.

The Regulars: 
Only Ginna Claire Mason is a "regular", having starred in last year's A Holiday Spectacular (which I know I watched some of but definitely didn't write about), but this is only her second on screen credit. She's a stage actress.   Most of the remaining cast are Geman actors. I really enjoyed Frédéric Brossier as Lukas. I wonder if he's ever seen a Hallmark movie before, because he obviously didn't know he could just phone this in. I really, really enjoyed Alexander Schubert as Herr Weidmann, just really brought something extra to that very small role.

How does it Hallmark?
Seriously, it's so much better than your standard Hallmark, just by being at a beautiful location. But add in touristy things, and, like, a dozen subplots that don't dominate the movie, and it's quite breezy, unlike most Hallmarkies which spin their tropey wheels. 

To be honest, I think had this been sort of a Before Sunrise kind of movie where two characters walk and talk through everything Heidelberg has to offer would have been preferable, even if the set-up was Omma's little treasure hunt map.  Or if it had been 90 minutes of exploring the market. I dunno. 

It was nice, though, really nice. 

How does it movie? 
As out of the box for a Hallmark as it gets, and for all the Deutschland of it, it still looks and feels like a Hallmarkie and not a movie. In a weird way, it's not a bad thing.  It's not "elevated Hallmark" (which needs to be more: smarter, funnier, better acted, better production values), just a good Hallmark.

How Does It Snow? 

The snow is largely real (what little there is of it) but there is an outdoor scene where it alternates between real snow and digital snow that I found very distracting.