December is here, which means two things: Every movie you’re watching is either Oscar bait or pure holiday trash. You have the Timothees and the Saiorses of the world dusting off their mantle for a trophy, and the Haylie Duffs of the world just dusting. Shockingly, there’s no award ceremony for being in your 25th TV movie—although I’d argue Haylie’s contributions to Hallmark movies warrant at least a Venice (Beach) Film Festival Award. Since I love to ruin things and act like I know what a movie is about before seeing it, I figured let’s throw all of these movies into a blender and see what would happen if these Oscar films existed in the Hallmark Cinematic Universe (HCU). Will our movie smoothie be disgusting? Maybe, but worst case, we can just add vodka.
‘The Favourite’
I personally (and emotionally) black out when it comes to British history, despite thriving during my time abroad in London—and by thriving, I mean drinking gallons of Pimms cups and asking everyone if my terrible British accent was any good. So, I kind of don’t totally know what is going on here. But what I do know is that Emma Stone and Mr. Taylor Swift are in it, so there’s that. What I also know is that it’s about royalty and two cousins trying to be the favourite (with a ‘u,’ mind u). So when it’s Christmas time, they’re two cousins fighting over their neighbors love. One is engaged to her and has everything you’d want in a man: a steady income, a great hairline, and a job that requires him to talk about briefs. However, they don’t have LOVE. Which is why, when she meets with the other cousin to prepare for their Christmas dinner and she realizes she doesn’t need a retirement plan or a joint-bank account, she needs the Christmas spirit and… love, duh.
‘Vox Lux’
Vox Lux is Natalie Portman as a pop star (girl, what?), but in the world of Hallmark, the pop star is actually the Christmas spirit, and the lux (or light, nbd but I did take Latin in middle school) is the north star that everyone follows to an amazing party on Christmas Eve. At the party, they do karaoke to holiday songs (my personal heaven) and… what’s this? The quiet girl from high school has a gorgeous voice? This shocks everyone, but most of all the guy she had a crush on in high school. Who knows who the hell is having this party, but that doesn’t matter—because of course, when the clock strikes midnight, they kiss! Does the girl with the amazing voice end up being a pop star? Of course not, because that would entail her going to the city at some point. In the HCU, cities are the root of all evil.
‘Ben Is Back’
Ben Is Back is already set during Christmas, which is perfect. But it’s mainly about drug addiction, which isn’t super Hallmark. So, we sub that out for something worse in the HCU: NOT BELIEVING IN CHRISTMAS. Could you even imagine? The mom (not Julia Roberts, unless she REALLY wants to buy another house somewhere and needs the Hallmark cash, which I’m assuming is just Panera gift cards), spends all of Christmas Eve showing her son the magic of Christmas—aka, having a group of carolers sing to him and finding an old ornament. Suddenly, Christmas is saved! Sidenote, should we all go out this year as famous Carols and go around singing as Carol Carolers? Dibs on Radziwill.
‘Mary Queen of Scots’
Okay, AP European History is truly trolling me this Oscar season. I somehow passed that exam, but it’s almost definitely because I was next to the really smart junior that i’d give life advice to in exchange for him letting me see his Scantron. Whatever, my degree’s in Communications anyway. ANYWAY, I do love that two Oscar queens from last year are in this together (Saiorse Ronan and Margot Robbie) and looking more gorgeous, talented, and wealthy than I will ever be. What I do know about this plot, though, is that it has had some historical inaccuracies so I’m going to say is that this is basically Hallmark’s version of Miracle On 34th Street, but the saying is “every time an iPhone XR rings, an angel gets its wings.”
‘A Star Is Born’
A Star Is Born would basically be A Star Is Born, but set in the community theater world and their production of the night Jesus was born. Ally Maine here was the understudy for playing Mother Mary, and the eight grader playing Joseph would pick her out of the costume department and bring her up to sing. Weirdly, they sing “Shallow,” but it works—because they’re far from the shallows now. And by shallows, I mean the point in history where we switched from “BC” to “AD.”
‘Green Book’
Green Book tells the story of a famed NYC bouncer becoming a driver for beyond-talented pianist Don Shirley. In the world of Hallmark, though, who needs a car? The driver is obviously operating a SLEIGH. Because let’s be real, Rudolph is drunk and no one knows where the hell the other reindeer are. He’s not driving because it’s his passion, but because he’s been on Santa’s Naughty List for decades and this is the only way to turn his fate around. Will he, or will he just give up somewhere over a fly-over state? TUNE IN TO FIND OUT.
‘Vice’
Santa’s in the (Snow) White House and we don’t know WTF is happening. It doesn’t matter, though, because an elf is his Vice President, and this elf ends up calling all the shots. He goes crazy shoving Christmas cookies into his mouth while trying to become the actual leader of Christmas and we see him going fully batsh*t while Santa is… just sort of standing there. Who knew we’d end up (almost) missing gentler-seeming (but equally ghoulish) Santa later on. Womp.
We love our moms. Seriously. They’re always there for us, and we don’t know where we would be without them. But wouldn’t it be fun if your mom was not just a cool mom, but a famous mom? In our alternate fantasy life, we could be on red carpets and living in some palace in Hollywood while our parents make millions. Like, did any one else see Francis Bean Cobain at the Met Gala and think, “if only my mom had been a famous heroin addict who may or may not have killed my dad. Then that could be me!” Or how like, Jaden Smith is just allowed to do whatever tf he wants (like bringing a handful of his own human hair to that very same Met Gala). It’s like, God mom, did you really have to spend all that time working hard and raising us when you could have been trying to get famous? Like, what were you even doing before you had me?
Okay so, JK, but in the spirit of Mother’s Day, here are the top celebrity moms we want to adopt us, because it’s fun to dream.
1. Blake Lively
Blake Lively is basically the dream mom. She’s beautiful and smart and funny and she loves to cook and she has a hot husband and can you tell that we like her? We’d get to live in a beautiful home in upstate New York, and the once or twice a year we’d get to go to a movie premiere. Sounds like a sweet deal to us.
2. Beyoncé
Blue Ivy is basically the princess of the world, which is what happens when your mom is an actual goddess. Like, I honestly dare anyone to show me a person who looks better pregnant than Bey. Her maternity fashion is on point. And considering she is already prepping for the arrival of her twins, so why not just adopt us at the same time? She’d barely even notice we were there.
3. Katie Holmes
This might seem like a surprising choice, but think about it. First of all, Suri was always the most stylish celebrity toddler, which is right up our alley. And now that Katie left Tom Cruise and all that Scientology bullshit behind, Suri is probably loving life. Also, we’d basically have Jamie Foxx as a stepdad now, and everyone loves a hot stepdad.
4. Meryl Streep
Not gonna lie, it would be pretty cool to have a mom who’s literally a national treasure. Her daughters are successful actors now too, which means Meryl did a pretty great job of raising them. We just need Meryl to hug us every day and tell us we’re beautiful, is that too much to ask?
5. Carrie Underwood
First of all, we really would love to inherit her flawless legs. We know that’s not actually how adoption works, but a girl can dream. Also, it would be pretty awesome to have her sing us to sleep every night. She also probably has a lot of hot country singer friends that she could set us up with. And if any guy ever cheated on us, mom would know exactly what to do.
6. Reese Witherspoon
If you watched Big Little Lies, this should be a no-brainer. You would always have a beautifully packed lunch to take to school, and she would argue with your teachers until they gave you good grades. She’s definitely the mom who’s basically your big sister, which is perfect for talking shit.
7. Natalie Portman
Natalie is perfect and has the body of a small bird, so we would definitely love to get some diet and exercise tips from her. As an Israeli-American, we’d also get Israeli passports, and she’d be sure to throw us an insane bat mitzvah. L’chaim, Betches.
8. Rachel Zoe
We want the clothes. There is no other reason.
9. Michelle Williams
First of all, Michelle has raised little Matilda as a single mom, which is the most badass thing. She also has incredible style and just seems like a person who has her shit very together. We’d love her motherly advice on how to pull off short hair, and also how to wear a choker without looking like a basic bitch.
10. Chrissy Teigen
Let me first just say that this is not a ranking and Chrissy is only number 10 because we wanted to build up the suspense. Of fucking course Chrissy would be on this list. Chrissy is gorg and a casual swimsuit model AND she’s hilarious af, especially on social media (aka the only place that matters). Chrissy is also an amazing cook and if we lived with her and John Legend (#swoon), we’d probs get fat but we’d honestly be okay with it. Actually, I’m not sure if I want Chrissy to adopt me so much as I want to BE Chrissy…
11. Tina Fey/Amy Poehler
Our ideal life situation is being co-parented by Tina and Amy, both of whom are just the best. Their kids are guaranteed to be funny and independent, and we really want to get in on it. Also, like, they’re rich AF.
Natalie Portman, black swan of our hearts and arguably one of the most perfect people on the planet, is a new mother again. In a classic A-list move, she had the baby on February 22 but waited over a week to tell anyone about it, because privacy or some bullshit. Natalie Portman’s daughter was born just four days before the Oscars, which explains why Natalie wasn’t there, even though she was nominated for Jackie and probs would’ve looked stunning.
Her new baby is a little girl named Amalia Millepied, which is a pretty name but with a name like that it kind of sounds like she could grow up to be psychotic and like, key a guy’s car if he does her wrong. We’re into it. It’s her second kid, after her son Aleph in 2011. It’s pretty disappointing that she didn’t also name her daughter after a letter in the Hebrew alphabet—we were personally rooting for Gimel—but whatever. Tbh if you want your future son to find a hot Jewish wife, have a kid now so they’re in Amalia’s age group.
Really we’ve never quite gotten over the fact that Natalie married the choreographer from Black Swan, Benjamin Millepied—aside from the fact that his last name conjures up some serious insect horror movie vibes. Like sure he’s good-looking and French and probably insanely flexible, but didn’t he like, abuse her while they were making the movie? It’s none of our business really, which is exactly why we care so much.
So now it’s time for Natalie to get her body back, which for her probably consists of like one pilates class a week and some intense stretching. She’s always been a skinny bitch, so it should only be a matter of weeks until shitty tabloids are starting anorexia rumors about her again.
Best of luck to Natalie and baby Amalia, and we better see some cute baby pictures soon.
