I always expect the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel to show movies with mysteries. Sometimes they do. Most of the time they don’t. Christmas in My Heart is another example of that movies without mysteries.
Beth (Heather Hemmens) is a professional violinist who comes home for the holidays after the recent death of her mother, the local music teacher. She ends up tutoring new violinist Katie (Maria Nash), the daughter of the reclusive country singer, Sean Grant (Luke Macfarlane). The power of music heals all of their broken hearts.
For once, this is a movie with musicians that actually contains music. We see Beth playing the violin and auditioning for the local orchestra. In addition, Katie plays her violin, Sean writes a song and sings it to Beth, and even Sean’s mother-in-law, Ruthie (Sheryl Lee Ralph) directs the local church choir and even sings a bit herself. So much music!
Another great thing about this movie is the message of being yourself. There are quite a few interracial couples in Heart. Both Ruthie and Katie are black so we have to assume Ruthie’s daughter/Katie’s mother was also black. Unfortunately, we don’t see a lot of her to get to know her. On a similar note, Beth is black and her father is white so we have to assume that her mother was black.
At first it seemed weird to have all of these interracial couples in a Hallmark movie but there were a couple of scenes that made the reasoning clear. The first scene is when Ruthie comes over to do Katie’s hair. Katie makes a comment about how her hair needs to be slicked back because that is how it looks “good.” Eventually the girl confesses that she only said that because she saw it on social media. The second scene is after Katie and Sean watch Beth play in a professional quartet. Katie notes how she has never seen anyone that looks like her playing the violin professionally. Representation matters but good representation matters even more.
But where there is a positive, there must always be a negative. To offset the amount of amazing music and black representation in the movie, we’re given a lot of death. Not only do we contend with the death of Beth’s mother but we also learn that Katie’s mother/Sean’s wife/Ruthie’s daughter died three years prior as well. Everyone seems to be coping well except Sean. The reason he’s a recluse is because he moved to the town where his wife grew up. He also keeps putting off decorating for Christmas. I suppose using death as a reason to “come home” is natural but they really could have used a different reason. We didn’t need a slew of dead moms.
Every other Hallmark movie will have some big boots to fill after Christmas in My Heart. It was a really good movie and I might have enjoyed it more than I should have. I definitely think people should watch this one. I’m not sure it’s good enough for an annual watching but definitely every other year.
