The Only Hallmark Christmas Movie That’s Actually Worth Watching

The Big Picture

• Hallmark’s new movie A Biltmore Christmas, a time-travel rom-com and a love letter to 1940s Hollywood, is a modern holiday classic in the making.
• Setting a new standard for Hallmark movies, the film is escapism at its most comforting and clever enough to appeal to audiences outside the traditional Hallmark demographic.
• The production filmed on a historic mansion and utilized real vintage costumes, another element that sets A Biltmore Christmas apart as the Hallmark movie most worth your time.

With its signature style, avid fanbase, and an industrious yearly tradition producing continually flourishing returns (the annual “Countdown to Christmas” extravaganza), Hallmark almost counts as a franchise. No, there’s no Hallmark Christmas Movie Cinematic Universe yet. But if some prickly fictional cynic isn’t rediscovering childlike wonder while simultaneously finding their soulmate against an appropriately cozy backdrop with fake snow sprinkling down the screen (and within a wacky plot line’s framework), then it just isn’t Christmas, gosh dang it! Admittedly, yours truly is a Hallmark novice. The list of movies I’ve technically watched remains shamefully low even though I approve of escapist guarantees beholden to the, quote-unquote, “Hallmark Christmas Movie” concept. I embraced said concept enough that I stayed up past my bedtime to catch a live broadcast of a movie with a logline that resonated with my soul. The result? I devoured this movie like cotton candy, or, more aptly, like an entire box of Little Debbie Christmas Tree cakes.

A Biltmore Christmas is a time-traveling romcom that operates as a love letter to classic 1940s Hollywood. The premise alone sells it. Yet even the silliest, cheesiest, beat-for-beat Hallmark movie needs to be entertaining enough to earn five out of five “snuggle on the couch with hot chocolate” ratings. A Biltmore Christmas is the jewel of Hallmark Media’s 2023 season and beyond; this twinkling, sparkling little rhapsody in sentiment is worthy of becoming a modern holiday classic even for those turned away by connotations associated with the phrase “Hallmark Movie.” Over four million viewers agree. If there’s a single Christmas movie that achieves everything it should for Hallmark traditionalists, that’s a quintessentially winter-speckled romance with wide-ranging appeal, it’s A Biltmore Christmas. It practically deserves the subtitle, “your ideal experience.” Without further ado, get into your matching flannel pajamas, spice your drinkable chocolate with eggnog, and let’s get to Hallmarking. Yes, that’s a verb.

What Is Hallmark’s ‘A Biltmore Christmas’ About?

In A Biltmore Christmas, the Hallmark beats practically drip with tinsel sheen. Lucy Hardgrove (Bethany Joy Lenz) is a professional screenwriter who thinks she has her life together. However, there’s one hurdle for Lucy to overcome: she’s tasked with writing the remake of the beloved 1940s movie, His Merry Wife! (Exclamation point included free of charge.) Lucy wants to update the “unrealistic” happy ending into the modern age. Her boss, knowing what sells best, insists that Lucy keep the original ending intact. She just can’t fathom how. You see, when she was a child, Lucy used to adore His Merry Wife!. She even nursed an understandable crush on its dashing male lead, the heartthrob actor Jack Huston (Kristoffer Polaha). Then, vague life events crushed her optimism. She’s convinced that people are incapable of demonstrating selflessness when push comes to shove. And Lucy has to believe in what she writes. As a natural pessimist, she craves realism. That puts her up-and-coming career in a perilous spot. By the way, it’s almost Christmas, and she has a terrible deadline every writer can wince over: an updated draft by January 1.

Lucy’s boss ships her off to spend Christmas at the Biltmore mansion in North Carolina where His Merry Wife! was filmed. The estate is the pinnacle of breathtaking glamour and glitz. Movie fangirls squeal out trivia answers during the guided tour, and Jonathan Frakes plays the increasingly exasperated manager in the movie’s first Star Trek-themed Easter Egg. Courtesy of an inexplicably magical hourglass, Lucy time travels to 1947 when His Merry Wife! was filming. Her presence starts affecting the future, and then the hourglass breaks, trapping her in the past. (Oh, no!) She also starts falling for His Merry Wife!‘s leading man and her old crush, Jack Huston — who’s destined to die on Christmas Eve, 1948. (Gasp!)

‘A Biltmore Christmas’ Combines Cleverness With Heart

In theory, a time-traveling sci-fi/fantasy romance based in filmmaking’s bygone era makes it easy to shower A Biltmore Christmas with superficial, knee-jerk praise. In actuality, the wealth of glories A Biltmore Christmas offers are predicated upon its cleverness. Marcy Holland‘s script bursts with reverence for the Golden Age of Hollywood, dropping shout-outs to the Criterion Collection and Turner Classic Movies like a gingerbread trail to the heart. When Lucy’s impromptu friend and My Merry Wife! expert Margaret (A.K. Benninghofen) questions Lucy’s ability to stay inconspicuous in 1947, Lucy snappily answers: “I’ve seen His Girl Friday, like, a dozen times. I think if I just throw a ‘buster’ here and a ‘fella’ there, I’ll blend right in.”

Overall, Lucy Hardgrove is a win for the rom-com girls. She’s both a self-assured, active heroine laced with accessible vulnerability and a character who naturally evokes the era’s classic charmers; Bethany Joy Lenz rocks the wily edge of a modern Barbara Stanwyck or Myrna Loy. Lucy’s relationship with Christmas — humanity in general, really — might be complicated enough to demand an arc where she re-embraces hope, but she isn’t grouchy for grouchy’s sake. She loves her family, she loves her career, and she comes to love Jack, a man from the past, with the latter never superseding the formers. A Biltmore Christmas wants Lucy to scale her creative Mount Everest and flourish in her job. Stumbling into a decades-spanning love story with her Cary Grant-esque soulmate is something destiny adds to her equation. Some may call this low-hanging fruit, but it’s a foundation that bears repeating until it’s normalized. Seeing this package given to a 42-year-old actress is especially delightful.

Most importantly, Lucy dances in a stunning vintage ballgown and lives out the fan romance dream with Jack. What could be yet another heterosexual pairing instead crackles with studied screwball comedy chemistry. The emotional hook is studied, too: will Lucy get back home before the metaphorical stroke of midnight? Does Jack really die? How could Hallmark get me invested only to break my heart? The best escapism doesn’t insist you come along for the ride. It warmly invites. It’s an open door and a table set with the belief that Christmas magic exists. A Biltmore Christmas is a perfectly nostalgic blanket and a warm hug. It’s comforting in an era of natural and designed comforts, and during a season where many are hurt and grieving. One could hardly ask A Biltmore Christmas for more, and director John Putch has a firm grasp of the proceedings.

Hallmark Spared No Expense With ‘A Biltmore Christmas’

A Biltmore Christmas‘ loving commitment to recreating Hollywood’s Golden Age doesn’t stop with Marcy Holland’s far more winsome and competent than expected script. Lucy dabbles in vintage clothing and glamorous up-dos, but Jack Huston of the posh greatcoats and Mid-Atlantic accent was born to it. Kristoffer Polaha feels as frozen in time as the performers he was tasked to emulate: “You know, straight posture, very witty, fast-paced, fast-talking, matinee idol stuff,” he told Heavy. The story resonated with Polaha as well, who was raised on Turner Classic Movies “with my dad on snowy afternoons in Reno, Nevada,” he shared with Southern Living. “I remember [my dad] would sit in this little Barcalounger and I’d be on the floor next to him and we’d be watching Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant or James Stewart.” Polaha added, “I think those movies are in large part early on, what made me want to do what I do for a living.”

The production level, meanwhile, adheres to a Hallmark budget standard while elevating it tenfold by filming on-site at the real life Biltmore Estate, a mansion trademarked as “America’s Largest Home®.” Established on Christmas Eve, 1895 by George Vanderbilt and named a National Historic Landmark in 1963, the French Renaissance château in Asheville, North Carolina boasts 250 rooms, a library of over 10,000 books, preserved art collections, and expansive grounds. Although no stranger to movies (The Last of the Mohicans and Forrest Gump, for example, utilized parts of the estate), Vanderbilt’s great-great-grandson Chase Pickering partnered with Hallmark to set the story inside Biltmore’s historic walls.

A Biltmore Christmas‘ cinematography and production design appropriately reflects its location. The mansion, grounds, and interiors evoke a wonder that’s enviable and accessible, given that Biltmore offers vacation deals. The old-timey glamour emphasizes the house’s modern tangibility. Heck, one room has a Fraser fir Christmas tree that’s 35 feet tall. For the many jaw-dropping costumes, designer Keith Nielsen utilized real vintage items from the 1940s and emulated era-appropriate patterns. Bethany Joy Lenz praised the attention to detail: “It really connected with that part of my heart and my spirit to step into these incredibly, beautifully well preserved items of clothing, costumes, that someone else wore and lived part of their life in,” she told Southern Living. Say what you will about Hallmark and genericism, but the company spared no expense, where multi-million dollar studios can under-provide.

Why Is ‘A Biltmore Christmas’ the Perfect Hallmark Movie?

Hallmark fans are already clamoring for a potential sequel to A Biltmore Christmas. The charmingly ambiguous lore allows for flexibility. I have already pledged to follow Lucy and Jack wherever they may lead, but there’s power in the one-and-done. That’s how old Hollywood did it. No one needs to be conversant in Criterion Collection trivia to revel in the comforts A Biltmore Christmas affords. Accessibility is the name of the game, especially since the movie one-ups its genre with cotton candy-sweetness and a freutcake-sharp astuteness. A Biltmore Christmas won’t rot your teeth with saccharine, but it will give you a safe kernel to escape to for a while — one that’s chocolate-dipped in nostalgic charm.

A Biltmore Christmas is available to stream on the Hallmark Channel.

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