After a long season of German films, of psychopaths, catastrophes and murderous monsters, when this time of the year arrives, after-dinner movies -that which is broadcast after lunch and whose main competitor is, precisely, sleep- turn to a genre that fills the catalogs of television channels -and, increasingly, that of platforms-: after-dinner Christmas movies.
Like any good afternoon movie, Christmas movies are also governed by codes and patterns that are repeated ad nauseam and make them predictable so that, in the event that viewers give in to sleep, when they wake up they can reengage with the plot without difficulty and confirm what they already knew was going to happen five minutes into the film.
A parade of charming towns that probably smell of freshly baked cupcakes, snowy landscapes, gifts and couples -presumably middle class, white, straight and with perfect smiles- wrapped in matching outfits in shades of green and red make up this collage of the Christmas catalog.
A collection that seems to be made from “copy-paste” and that makes us wonder if, deep down, they are not all the same movie -although that doesn’t stop us from watching them, and even enjoying them- and if there is a direct relationship between the late-night movie industry and the stock image industry.
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The person behind @pelidetarde (48k followers), who for now prefers not to reveal his identity “because it makes the account funnier”, not only shares synopses or transforms current events into an after-dinner movie plot with a tweet: in his homonymous blog he has interviewed Pilar Eyre, a fan of the genre, or Lluïsa Valldaura, the actress of a well-known toothpaste ad.
Her dream interview would be with Eric Roberts,“the brother of Julia Roberts, who is the idol of the after-dinner conversations“. She has tried to contact him, but beyond a couple of likes so far she has not been successful. Although, she says, it’s a start.
How did you come up with the idea of opening an account to vindicate the genre?
I’ve always been very fond of cinema and a few years ago a friend of mine insisted that I become a Twitter account. I saw that there were too many film accounts in use and I decided to focus on the evening movies, which is a type of film that everyone sees, but no one claims. Later, seeing that it had some success and that people liked my comments, I decided to expand them a little more on the blog.
It can be said that they are of low quality, that they are made like hot cakes and that they are not the typical movies that you bring out in a get-together with your friends to show off your cinematographic knowledge, but the truth is that everybody watches them or sleeps them in family, on a hangover day… and I think they deserved their space.
What are the ingredients that a movie has to have to be a perfect Christmas after-dinner movie?
The key is that the protagonist – well, the protagonist in most cases – has to be someone from the city who is disenchanted with Christmas and with love. That’s key: these are people who don’t believe in Christmas. And for some reason, they have to return to a town around that time. It doesn’t have to be theirs either, but it usually is because they have to visit their father, who is alone because his mother passed away, and they have to help him in the Christmas tree store.
So they reluctantly return, thinking they will spend only two days there, but something – a snowstorm, car trouble – forces them to stay longer, reuniting with their childhood or high school sweetheart, who is usually a veterinarian, and they believe in Christmas and love again.
Those towns are like a giant Vigo [laughs]: they are obsessed with lights, with Christmas, they follow all the Christmas protocols… And of course, the poor protagonist has no choice but to believe again, because she is almost forced to do so.
And within that there are subgenres…
Yes, in fact there are quite a few. In the U.S. I don’t know why they often associate Christmas with royalty. At some point there’s usually a trip to Europe and some prince meets an American commoner and they fall in love and get married at Christmas.
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Life swapping is also common: relatives who have never met and are identical cross paths on a train and swap lives for a week without their families realizing it. I want to believe that if I switched with someone similar to me, my family would notice [laughs]. What there isn’t is subgenres of psychopaths at Christmas. It hasn’t been explored yet, but it would be nice, it would be the perfect formula: a Christmas movie tone and then suddenly it twists. It would be fantastic.
What five tabletop Christmas movies to watch according to @pelidetarde.
1. The ‘Lacey Chabert’s’
There is a sub-genre unto itself which is ‘Lacey Chabert‘. She’s an actress who was in Mean Girls, and she’s a genre herself: I couldn’t tell her movies apart or recommend one of them because they’re all exactly the same. It seems as if she is cryogenically frozen for the rest of the year and when November arrives she is thawed out to act. She lives in a permanent Christmas surrounded by mistletoe, Christmas trees…. A Lacey Chambert movie is a must see, for sure.
Certainly, there are plenty to choose from: from ‘The Christmas Waltz‘ (“A woman abandoned by her fiancé a month before her Christmas wedding decides to continue with classes for her wedding dance”) or ‘Time for us to go home for Christmas‘ (“Five people are mysteriously invited to a celebration at a hostel to celebrate Christmas. With the help of the owner, Ben, Sarah discovers that they are connected by an event from the past that could change their lives forever”) to ‘Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe‘ (“Darcy returns home for the vacations and promptly runs into Luke, her old high school nemesis. Together they host a Christmas benefit gala and realize that their first impressions of each other may not have been accurate.”).
Dolly Parton: Christmas on the Square’ (2020)
There’s also no shortage of platform releases to keep them coming. In fact on the blog last year I discussed one that really surprised me on Netflix: ‘Dolly Parton: Christmas in the Square.’ The film stars Regina Fuller (played by Christine Baranski), “a wealthy and unpleasant woman who returns to her hometown upon the death of her father on Christmas Eve. Her only goal is to vacate the land she owns and sell it,” reads the film ‘s synopsis on IMDb.
The most popular platforms are betting more and more on these Christmas afternoon movies, and Spain is no exception. Proof of this is that Netflix premieres this Christmas Eve ‘A 1,000 km de Navidad’, directed by Álvaro Fernández Armero, with a cast that includes well-known -and recognized- faces such as Tamar Novas, Peter Vives, Andrea Ros or the recently deceased Verónica Forqué. As for movie theaters, last November Fernando Colomo released ‘Cuidado con lo que deseas’, starring Dani Rovira, Cecilia Suárez -well known for her role as Paulina in the series ‘La casa de las flores’-, Vicente Romero Sánchez or José Sacristán.
3. ‘Navidad de una adicta a los zapatos’ (2018).
Another one that is very good is ‘Christmas of a Shoe Addict’, it is a very crazy movie that is on Prime Video. Its synopsis on IMDb reads as follows: “Noelle gets locked in a department store on Christmas Eve. There she meets a woman who identifies herself as her guardian angel and who will introduce her to the ghosts of her Christmases past, present and future.”
4. The bizarre recommendation: ‘A Karate Christmas Miracle’ (2019).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYj4nZE89ww
I don’t want to stop recommending a very bizarre movie called ‘A karate Christmas Miracle’. It’s on YouTube and it’s not subtitled or dubbed, but it’s one of the most absurd I’ve ever seen in my life, and also Eric Roberts is in it for a few seconds. It’s a movie about a kid who loses his father in some crazy circumstances and believes that if he gets a black belt in karate before Christmas Day his father will come back from the dead. Truly a movie that if people have time and understand a little English they should see once in a lifetime.
And he is not the only person who thinks so: the featured review on IMDb gives it a 10/10 and is titled ‘Everything You Never Knew You Needed In A Movie – Will Change Your Life’.
5. The recommendation of a classic: And Suddenly, Another Life (2013).
I would also recommend as a must-see classic one called ‘And Suddenly, Another Life!’. One of the lead actresses, Jennie Garth, was on ‘Sensation of Living,’ the ’90s teen soap opera. Besides, it is the image I had as avatar when I opened the account: a friend of mine caricatured it and now it is a drawing, but it is taken from this movie, which fulfills all the clichés of Christmas movies.
Maybe, as I said in an article in S Moda by Carmen Lopez,“Life, in the end, is an afternoon movie“. And what better way to spend the holidays than on the couch, under the warmth of a blanket, watching -or sleeping- a good after-dinner Christmas movie.