Christmas movies have always served up huge dollops of fantasy, so it's not surprising that a lot of folks enjoy this escape into fictional romance.
If you haven't noticed how the 10 most common tropes of Christmas movies have changed in recent years, you have clearly not been tuning in to the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime or even Netflix during the month of December.
Brooke Shields manages to up the location ante by sharing a castle with a Scottish Duke, played by Cary Elwes, speaking in a burr as deep as a dish of haggis. The movie is called"A Castle for Christmas," so nobody misses the point. And suspending disbelief is kind of at the root of secular Christmas, what with flying sleighs and bottomless bags of goodies. Current movies are just following the pattern, and they don't mind treading all over the familiar territory blazed by earlier Christmas favorites, like"It's a Wonderful Life."
To be brutally pedantic about it, Christmas movies are not shot in December, but usually in the summer. And in California. So nobody is cold, the snow is fake, and the extravagant visuals — trees, lights, gingerbread houses — are thanks to the skill of set decorators.That clearly comes into play not just in the romantic fables of the season. Like every other aspect of entertainment, hits tend to inspire sequels, no matter how contrived they have to be to continue the original story.