This year, in their annual Christmas line-up, the Hallmark channel made an attempt at inclusivity through a Hanukkah themed movie, Love, Lights and Hanukkah. The movie is centered on Christine, an adoptee who's love for Christmas is only outshone by her love for cooking, and her recently deceased mother. At the beginning of the movie we see that Christine is waiting on the results of a DNA test and we soon learn she has a close relative who lives only ten miles away! So far this movie is not unlike many other Hallmark originals, just a little too cheesy and on the nose. When she meets this close family member, Becky (exact relation still unknown) she finds they have a lot in common, from running restaurants to dead parents, they could almost be sisters! Christine is invited to a family brunch where she meets Ruth, Becky's mother who is distressed over the fact that "there's only four days to Hanukkah and she still has so much to do!" Not exactly a common problem for Jews, Christians on the other hand... Ruth seems to have a lot of specific personal questions of Christine. Surprise surprise, Ruth is Christine's biological mother! Ruth got pregnant when she was 19 and studying abroad in Italy. While the actress who plays Christine is 45 years old, the character is clearly supposed to be much younger. So the math here with Becky (the supposedly much younger sister) having two pre-teen children, doesn't quite add up. Throughout the rest of the movie we learn about Hanukkah traditions along with Christine, all of which seem to resemble Christmas traditions just a little too closely. I mean, no one collects dreidels like ornaments. And for the final night of Hanukkah, Christine hosts a beautiful dinner, complete with latkes made from Ruth's recipe. They exchange gifts and Ruth gives Christine a phone number for her biological father in Italy, a man who had no idea she even existed. And, of course, along the way, Christine falls in love with a friend of the family who just so happens to be the food critic who said her food was predictable. In the end she fuses her Italian and Jewish cultures together for a Fest of the Seven Fishes like never before. Despite the clear cookie-cutter Hallmark format, and the poor attempt and shaping Hanukkah into it, the channel deserves props for the well intentioned and non problematic venture into an inclusive film.
Review of Love, Lights, Hanukkah!
