Stream It or Skip It: ‘Holiday Heritage’ on Hallmark Is the Network’s First Kwanzaa Movie

As part of Hallmark’s initiative to broaden the scope of the season, Holiday Heritage is the network’s first-ever Kwanzaa movie. Director Alfons Adetuyi and writer Rhonda Baraka teamed-up with Hallmark superstar Holly Robinson Peete to make this momentous celebration happen — but does Holiday Heritage deliver?

HOLIDAY HERITAGE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Lyndie Greenwood (The Expanse) plays Ella, a graphic designer in Boston whose family has been having a hard time since the passing of her grandfather a few years prior. Ella’s trip back home to Mary’s Town, Pennsylvania for the holidays gets off to a shocking start when her mom Micah (Holly Robinson Peete) reveals that she’s moving to Chicago to start her own bistro. It turns out that Micah’s relationship with her mother Tess (Darlene Cooke) has only worsened over the past year now that Micah’s father/Tess’s husband is gone. The two are barely speaking to each other — and they both run the Chapel Family Bakery. The tension could be cut with a bread knife.

Ella desperately wants to repair this rift and keep her mom in Mary’s Town — and she has a great plan. What if she pulls out grandpa’s Kwanzaa chest and gets her entire family — plus her ex Griffin, who is now the mayor of Mary’s Town — to celebrate all seven nights of the holiday? Maybe then she’ll mend her family and maybe, maybe, she’ll even repair her relationship with Griffin…

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Ella and Griffin’s plotting to get Micah and Tess in the same room to get them to talk about their feelings felt very Parent Trap — but, y’know, for adults.

Performance Worth Watching: I’m going to give this to composer Michael Richard Plowman, whose work in this film has to be called out. I’ve frequently pointed out how rich cinematography can elevate any holiday TV movie from good to great, but I’ve never put much thought into how the original music accomplishes a similar thing. There is a real percussive, propulsive heart to the score that adds to the emotional stakes of every montage — all while still feeling festive.

Memorable Dialogue: “Dreams don’t have zip codes. Sometimes it takes going away to realize that your dream can grow wherever you feel the sun shining on your face the brightest, wherever it gets watered, wherever your roots are the deepest.”

A Holiday Tradition: Mary’s Town has a tree lighting ceremony, a Karamu Community Festival on the seventh night of Kwanzaa, a Christmas recipe swap, caroling, and a silent art auction. The Chapels have their own traditions, like busting out some gaudy elf slippers and watching A Christmas Carol.

Two Turtle Doves: If you want another story of an estranged mother/daughter duo working through their issues at Christmastime, pair this movie with Lifetime’s Kirk Franklin’s The Night Before Christmas.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: Both words — holiday and heritage — are appropriate, but it’d be nice if Hallmark’s first Kwanzaa movie would have Kwanzaa in the title. But knowing how goofy Hallmark titles can skew, it’d probably end up being called A Very Kwanzaa Christmas or Cookies for Kwanzaa or something.

Our Take: It is very evident, from the cast and script to the costuming and music, that Hallmark wanted to make its first Kwanzaa movie special. Mission: accomplished. That’s not to say that Holiday Heritage is the most inventive movie of the season or the most surprising, or even the most ambitious. It’s not a period piece and there are no witches in Holiday Heritage. Instead, this movie feels elevated because of the performances and the dynamics between the three generations of Chapel women. Holiday Heritage isn’t flashy, but it is emotionally daring.

Seriously — Holly Robinson Peete, Lyndie Greenwood, and Darlene Cooke are extraordinary as a family unit. The family resemblance between Greenwood and Robinson Peete is truly uncanny. You really feel the history in every scene they share, and that even goes for Grandpa Riley (played in an old video by Rothaford Gray). The movie somehow makes us feel like we know Grandpa Riley just through the way others talk about him, and that makes us feel the absence of a character that we’ve never seen before — almost like this is Season 3 of the Hallmark Channel original series The Chapel Women.

And unlike Hallmark movies of previous years, but like a lot of Hallmark movies this year, the central storyline of Holiday Heritage isn’t a man and a woman falling in love. Ella does have history (and chemistry) with Griffin, but that’s a bonus and not the focus. In a genre that really has a dead mom problem, it’s so refreshing to see a movie dig into the bonds between two sets of mothers and daughters. It’s also a welcome change to see a holiday movie where the conflict comes from within the family as opposed to a real estate developer. Keeping your family together for the holidays can be hard enough without having to bring in someone who wants to buy their bakery, inn, or historic downtown rec center.

As for the reason for this seasonal movie, I really enjoyed seeing the rituals of Kwanzaa — a holiday that I admittedly know very little about — take up space in the film, be treated with respect (“Kwanzaa is cultural medicine for Black families”), and also be supported by the entire community of Mary’s Town. There is so much potential for this holiday in the Hallmark movie lineup, and hopefully we’ll see it realized. And hopefully future Kwanzaa movies will build on the solid foundation that Holiday Heritage puts down.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Holiday Heritage is a heartwarming watch and hopefully the first of many annual Kwanzaa movies.