Many Hallmark movies rely heavily on the “big city to small town” romance trope popularized in 19th century literary works such as Jane Eyre with an antithesis being portrayed in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

Anna Karenina is notably different however since she is still bound by aristocratic class duties that suppress her self actualization, despite moving to a rural setting.

Tolstoy wrote about Christian Anarchism later in his life where he advocates for a simple, nonviolence based, communal and agricultural life style as the most meaningful way to live. He opposed institutions and industrial-capitalism as tools that separate people and corrupt human dignity.

Tolstoy’s writings inspired several nonviolent revolutionaries in the 20th century namely Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Hallmark movies are a conveyer belt of Tolstoy’s worldview, which is that an urban corporate life can deprive one of deeper meaning and a rural life with a close knit community is the remedy to that.

My wife and I have watched too many Hallmark movies to count. There’s something about watching a production that’s a bit rough around the edges.

Often, these movies rely on the urban to rural transition in lieu of more meaningful character development for the female protagonist. They also ignore that moving to a rural setting will guarantee new hardships of navigating a society that is less open to women.

The men are portrayed as idealistic both physically and in character. Realism gives way to fantasy here which is not necessarily empowering to any gender.

Overall, these movies serve as a type of escapism for a majority that live lives of corporate drudgery. I don’t see the movies as good or bad per se, more so amoral though commendable for promoting the value of community, however hamfisted the approach.