12 Movies of Christmas: My Very First Hallmark Christmas Film
I love a good Christmas movie – I mean, who doesn’t? In fact, it doesn’t even need to be all that good. As long as it pushes the right buttons to give me the appropriate seasonal feels, I’ll be on the verge of blubbing tears of festive joy come the end credits. I also consume hundreds of films each year in my line of work, so when you combine those factors, it’s kind of remarkable that I’ve made it to 2025 without ever watching a Hallmark Christmas Movie.
I’ve been vaguely aware of the phenomenon for several years now without bothering to look into it much. The general vibe I got was that the dozens of films produced each year for holiday viewing on the cable network have become a jokey by-word for cheesy and formulaic Christmas fare. This has led to my own preconception that Hallmark Christmas movies would be too schmaltzy, too generic, too glossy, too safe, and, frankly, too white middle-American for my taste, pushing old-fashioned Christian values in service of the brand.
Ahead of taking the plunge and actually watching one, however, my research seems to say that isn’t necessarily the case. While Hallmark movies certainly strive to present a perfect vision of a traditional American Christmas, the enormous success is largely based on offending as few people as possible – the network’s roster of holiday films now draws upwards of 80 million viewers.
In recent years, however, there has been some mild controversy about the lack of diversity, and consequently the channel has discreetly introduced more story-lines involving people of colour and LGBTQ+ couples without disrupting the formula too much. They also do a few Hannukah-themed movies just to broaden the scope a little more, although the iconography and story-lines tend to remain essentially the same.
As such, the films are generally apolitical and tend to stay away from the Jesus aspect of Christmas, focusing instead on heart-warming romantic tales that stick to a few tried-and-trusted templates. General wisdom suggests that a classic plot-line involves a cynical and career-minded city-dweller returning to their small town home for the holidays, falling for a local hottie, and rediscovering their festive cheer. Maybe there will be magic or time travel involved, and perhaps someone will turn out to be Santa Claus for real, but things will have a happy and sentimental ending no matter what.
So, how do you go about choosing your first Hallmark Christmas movie from over 300 that have been churned out since the channel went live in 2001? There are 29 new holiday offerings slated for broadcast this year alone. Well, I triangulated a few trusted sources (Entertainment Weekly, Variety) with Rotten Tomatoes (90% on the Popcornmeter) to home in on a fairly new release, A Biltmore Christmas from 2023.
I must confess that I first read the title as A Baltimore Christmas, but sadly John Waters is not involved in this one. American readers will have to forgive my ignorance, but that led to the question, “What’s a Biltmore?” Luckily the internet had an answer for me: Built in the late 19th Century by George Vanderbilt II, the lavish French Renaissance-style mansion in the middle of a sprawling 125,000 acre North Carolina estate is the largest privately owned home in the United States. In short, it’s a pretty spectacular location for a Christmassy time-travelling romantic comedy.
We meet Lucy Hargrove (Bethany Joy Lenz), an ambitious screenwriter who lands a potentially career-making gig penning the remake of a 1940s Hollywood Christmas movie, His Merry Wife! The studio boss isn’t too pleased with her tweaking the feel-good ending in favour of something more in line with modern sensibilities, however, and dispatches her to the opulent location of the original film, the Biltmore Estate, for inspiration. Lucy isn’t enthralled by the prospect of spending the holidays on assignment, and she is also up against a strict deadline to turn in a revised draft.
The fictional movie-within-a-movie stars dashing leading man Jack Hudson (Kristoffer Polaha) as a deceased husband given an opportunity to earn his wings by helping his widowed wife (Annabelle Borke) find love again. With clear nods to real Hollywood classics like It’s a Wonderful Life and A Guy Named Joe, we also learn that His Merry Wife! was a surprise hit at the time which resurrected the career of Hayward and made a star of the relatively unknown Hudson before his untimely death a year after its release.
In the reality of the film, the Biltmore cashes in on the success of the beloved classic each holiday season by opening its doors to fans under the watchful eye of the mansion’s supervisor, played by Jonathan Frakes of Star Trek fame. Given access to some of the Biltmore’s treasured props from the movie, a magic hour glass whisks Lucy back to 1947 and drops her right in the middle of the first production.
Some light fish-out-of-water shenanigans ensue and Lucy discovers that there was an original ending closer in tone to her own, and naturally she ends up sparring with Jack before falling in love with him. But in true time-travel fashion, her presence on set threatens to alter the trajectory of Hollywood history, and an accident with the hour glass means she might get trapped in the past forever. But can she find a way to get back home, and if so, will she stick around anyway to save Jack’s life?
There are no prizes for guessing the eventual outcome, but A Biltmore Christmas screenwriter Marcy Holland does a surprisingly good job of throwing a little doubt in there for a while. Until then, it plays out delightfully and I can’t believe how much I genuinely enjoyed this movie. I went in expecting to be groaning and rolling my eyes throughout, but Holland holds back on the schmaltz with a smart and affectionate script that clearly loves its characters and cinematic lore.
Some of the Back to the Future references are a bit on the nose, but I found myself laughing with appreciation at some of the nods to the golden age of Hollywood. The black-and-white mock-up of His Merry Wife! doesn’t look convincing in the least, but I was still won over by Lucy’s brief impersonation of Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday to fit in, and her ruse to distract the Biltmore receptionist: “I think Judy Garland is stuck in your elevator. I can hear her shrieking… in E Flat!”
Lovely screwball moments like that compliment the romantic aspect wonderfully, and there is some winning chemistry between Lenz and Polaha that makes it easy to invest in the story. I’ve never heard of either of them before but they’re great company. Lenz’s performance is disarmingly warm and sincere and Polaha is super charming with his laid-back humour and old-school matinee idol looks reminiscent of Joel McCrea in Sullivan’s Travels. Polaha has said in interviews that he’d like to be remembered in the same vein as Hollywood nice guys like James Stewart and Tom Hanks. On this evidence, he’s certainly in the right ball park.
A Biltmore Christmas is often called the Citizen Kane of Hallmark Christmas movies and that doesn’t feel like a surprise, even watching it without having any other film in their roster to compare it with. It’s efficiently directed by John Putch, who finds a way to let his lead actors breathe in such a short running time and handles the time travel aspect in an unfussy manner, with pleasing cinematic moments like split-screen showing characters in the same place simultaneously in two different points in time.
And the movie looks absolutely sumptuous. Hallmark movies have become synonymous with glossy production values, which is something I usually turn my nose up at. However, the filmmakers have gone all-out to make everything look as wonderful as possible and the high sheen is anything but sterile.
It certainly helps that the movie was shot on location at the Biltmore. The estate has appeared in numerous films over the years, but this is the first time it was given a starring role and it’s a showstopper. The costume designers pulled out the stops too, providing 11 elegant outfits for Lenz plus an era-appropriate wardrobe for the rest of the cast. On top of all that, the Christmas tree budget must have exceeded the salaries alone, and the cinematography takes its cue from the poinsettias that appear in one scene. Rich reds and greens provide a warm contrast to all the tinsel, baubles, and fairy lights, combining to create such a toasty feeling that radiates from the screen.
After going in half-expecting to hate it, I really don’t have any major gripes about A Biltmore Christmas. My only real criticism (which isn’t a bad one in the scheme of things) is that it flies by so quickly. Clocking in at under 90 minutes, it dashes to the end so fast that some things are left a little under-developed, such as the seldom-used villain of the piece. I would’ve quite happily spent another 15-20 minutes in this world with these characters, and it’s rare for me to wish a movie ran longer.
Overall, my very first Hallmark Christmas movie was a winner and I’d happily recommend A Biltmore Christmas to anybody. Indeed, it’s probably the best new festive film I’ve seen for quite a few years now. I might even go back to the list and watch another one!
