As soon as upon a very long time in the past, when there have been comparatively few of them, I used to overview a Hallmark or Lifetime vacation film or two, however in 2024, when the channels have added 44 new movies between them, it’s grow to be pointless. Anyway, you may virtually write them in your personal thoughts. Besides as a type of hypnotic leisure, even watching appears inappropriate.
On occasion, nonetheless, one thing stands out; my curiosity, private as a lot as skilled, is piqued. And so we come to Hallmark’s uncommon Jewish-themed “Hanukkah on the Rocks,” a nice, frictionless story from screenwriter Julie Sherman Wolfe (creator additionally of this 12 months’s Hallmark film “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story”) premiering Friday, and, positive, it’s because I’m Jewish myself (of the atheistic selection, however no much less Jewish for that) and to see what this machine makes of my individuals.
We’re in Chicago, which is to say, Canada. Tory (Stacey Farber, from “Virgin River”) is a company lawyer who loses her job in a merger, a job she has already determined she hates, regardless that she’d hoped to make accomplice; as much as that time, she’s been the mannequin of the Hallmark workaholic working lady, working out on breakfast together with her grandmother, Bubby (Marina Stephenson Kerr), the minute her cellphone pings.
Jay (Daren Kagasoff) is a radiologist, again within the Windy Metropolis from Florida, despatched by his dad and mom to persuade his grandfather, Sam (Marc Summers), to affix them within the Sunshine State — as a result of he’s, you understand, older, and as soon as fell down. (Sam is in any other case the image of vigorous well being.) Jay and Tory meet cute over a field of Hanukkah candles — she dispatched to purchase them by her grandmother, he by his grandfather — a supposedly superior model of which there’s just one field left in all Chicago.
Marc Summers performs Sam, Jay’s grandfather, a daily at Rocky’s, a bar the place a lot of the story takes place.
(Steven Ackerman / Hallmark Media)
Despite the fact that the field says it incorporates 42 candles, sufficient for seven Hanukkahs, the filmmakers belief you haven’t observed that and as a substitute go together with the concept that there’s simply sufficient for one. And so when Tory and Jay cut up the candles between them — after she follows him to the bar the place Sam hangs out (and which he lives over) to ask for half — some type of miraculous intervention, or lower than miraculous plot twist, shall be essential to make it by way of the vacation. “I have no doubt we have enough candles for all eight nights,” says Sam, “just like the oil in the Hanukkah story.” You possibly can look that up if you happen to don’t understand it.
Rocky’s is the bar, so pleasant it makes “Cheers” appear like “The Iceman Cometh.” Tory, a redheaded ray of sunshine, makes it even cheerier. Having demonstrated the right way to make an old style after the same old bartender abruptly runs off to Cabo, she’s enlisted as a brief alternative and, just like the oil within the story, one evening turns into many. Throughout this week and a day, she’s going to remodel Rocky’s right into a Hanukkah haven; invent drinks with names like “bourbon shamash” (that’s the candle that lights the opposite candles on the menorah), which is an old style with a jelly doughnut gap garnish, and a “gelty pleasure,” served with chocolate Hanukkah cash; and encourage individuals to grow to be their finest selves. She, after all, may even grow to be her finest self.
Together with Sam, the bar is stocked with Lottie (Lauren Cochrane), who appears to run the place and gives its gourmet-level chow; Stacy-Lynn (Verity Marks), a waitress about to audition for Second Metropolis; and Anthony (Dan De Jaeger), a former accountant writing a novel on cocktail napkins who has a crush on Lottie, which he inexpertly expresses. Exterior the confines of this hamish “historic lounge,” as Sam likes to name it, moreover Bubby, are Tory’s sister, Becca (Cora Matheson), whom she doesn’t see sufficient, and Becca’s son Parker (Braden Blair), who doesn’t even acknowledge Tory when she makes a really uncommon go to. Her dad and mom will present up as nicely, and if I can discover their names, I’ll inform you who performed them.
“Everybody gather round,” says Sam, about to mild the menorah on Hanukkah evening one. “What if we’re not Jewish?” asks Anthony. “Everybody means everybody,” Sam replies. “The menorah is a symbol of hope — who doesn’t need that?” (Latke bean bag toss and Hanukkah trivia to comply with.) Together with the greeting-card homilies (“You just need to follow your heart; the rest will take care of itself”), the movie is a carnival of Jewish signifiers (mah-jongg, Hebrew faculty, summer time camp, dreidels) and Yiddishisms: schmendrick, punim, putz, bubbala, mensch, gornisht, schlep, beshert, tsuris, chutzpah, altercocker, mishigas. I imply, it’s good to listen to.
“Hanukkah on the Rocks” is a carnival of Jewish signifiers.
(Steven Ackerman / Hallmark Media)
And meals, after all, since you’ve acquired to eat. (“Aren’t you eating?” Tory’s mother asks her.) No figgy pudding or, God forbid, baked ham, however black-and-white cookies, lox and bagels, brisket, latkes, babka and kichel. Lottie, who shouldn’t be Jewish, cooks up Manischewitz-braised brief ribs with a horseradish sauce, fried dill pickle spears with every thing bagel ranch dressing (if I heard that proper), challah bread pudding with vanilla glaze. Says grandpa Sam, “Food has always brought generations together and I’m glad we’re doing that here too.”
On some stage, this does appear supposed for the Jewish Hallmark fan who wish to see one thing nearer to residence — many people, after all, do get pleasure from a very good Christmas film, by which I imply that primarily secular, pop-cultural vacation about bushes and presents and that man within the pink swimsuit. That’s frequent property. (We wrote your finest Christmas songs, in spite of everything: “White Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “The Christmas Song” — the one about chestnuts roasting on an open fireplace — “Santa Baby,” “Silver Bells,” “Santa Claus Is Back in Town”; I might go on.)
Will it work the opposite approach round? In what is probably a sidelong reference to the movie itself, when Hanukkah on the Rocks takes off — for thus Rocky’s has been briefly named — Stacy declares, “Everyone’s saying they’ve seen this kind of thing for Christmas, but never for Hanukkah. It’s already all over Instagram!”
There’s valuable little battle — little, maybe, even for a Hallmark film. The primary predicaments are that Tory is avoiding telling her dad and mom she misplaced her job, which after all she’s going to, and that Jay imagines he’s going again to Florida, which is clearly not going to occur. There’s one synthetic, professional forma flare-up between the nascent couple, which lasts about 15 seconds earlier than apologies are proffered, however their solely actual downside is that the script gained’t allow them to kiss till the top of the movie, a foregone conclusion this sentence will do nothing to spoil.
And there’s that query of the candles, however if you happen to suppose that’s a severe query, you haven’t been listening. The obviousness is a function, not a bug.