Die Hard Is Not a Christmas Movie
By: Hollis Hartwell
I have spent a lot of time over this last week thinking about what makes a Christmas movie different than any other movie. Is it the setting of Christmas? Does Santa need to save the day? Is snow a requirement?
My personal favorite film of the season is about a loud family coming back together for the holidays where one of the grown children introduces a woman who doesn’t quite fit with the rest of them.
They aren’t right for each other, disaster ensues, and yet, there is no villain.
They are all good. Imperfectly human like the rest of us.
One particular scene spoke to me a bit more than usual this year.
The family the new woman visits takes a photo in which she isn’t included.
I cried at that—I don’t know if I ever have before.
I sat on my sofa thinking I know that feeling.
Know what it’s like to want to fit somewhere and not. To be a bit clunky in my own skin.
I’m pretty sure I have spent the last two years of my life feeling this exact way. Wanting my marriage to work. Wanting everyone to be happy. Wanting my smile to look genuine when neither of the former were happening.
At the end of the day, our clunky girl finds someone who sees her—adores her—just as she is.
It has nothing to do with Santa or even Christmas, simply a matter of her being at the right place at the right time with a man who is so different than her he’s perfect.
He doesn’t play games. He just loves her. Even the parts other people don’t like.
What if Christmas movies have nothing to do with Christmas and are simply just movies we need during the holidays?
What if it’s Jurassic Park on Christmas Eve or Star Wars on Christmas morning because those are the stories that challenge us to dream of things that seem impossible?
What if movie night in the park under strings of lights was Pirates of the Caribbean and when we feel a bit lonely, we watch When Harry Met Sally while wearing pajamas of red and green?
Maybe the movie isn’t about the movie at all. Maybe it’s not even about Christmas. Maybe it’s about more.
Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, but, perhaps in years when we need a distraction, it is.
When the last thing we need is the reminder none of our traditions are what they used to be, it’s the absurdity of a machine gun saving the day that pulls us out of our heads and into the moment like a well-chosen gift.
Like a glimmering thread of cinematic magic.
Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, but it has the audacity to claim its spot in the season, demanding it be noticed by putting Bruce Willis’s face next to Bing Crosby and Tim Allen as the tried-and-true symbols of yule.
No matter how unlikely, no matter how much we may or may not agree with its categorization, here it is—with lasting power—leading me to wonder what else is out there making less sense but feeling like Christmas just the same.
Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. But maybe it is.