Vintage: Hallmark 2020
Hallmark approved summary: Charles Whitley travels from 1903 to 2020 where he meets Megan Turner and experiences a 21st Century Christmas.
Actual summary: Woman loves a Christmas zombie.
Cast member prestige: It’s another casting overlap! Charles Whitley is played by Ryan Paevey, cultivator of hybrid pears in Harvest Love. And Megan Turner is played by Erin Cahill, of Love, Fall, and Order “fame.”
Action:
This one is based on a 2018 novel that a) I have not read, and b) is owned by exactly one library in my entire library system. Does not bode well, friends.
We open on Cutter Springs, NY in the year 1903. At an auction, our hero Charles Whitley bids on and wins a Christmas clock, engraved with the following words: “Wind once in Christmas moon; True love will find you soon.” Charles heads home to his mansion, clock in hand, and is greeted by his fiance Eliza waiting for him in the parlor. Eliza wants Charles to join her for her parents’ Christmas party, but Charles declines. “I have too much work to do and not enough time to do it,” he says, pointing out that he is trying to modernize their family’s steel mill by next year. “You’re always living in the future,” Eliza protests. Charles replies, with all of Hallmark’s trademark subtlety: “Why not? The future’s a nice place, full of possibilities and new ideas.”
Later, in his study, Charles discovers that the Christmas clock he purchased earlier, intended as a gift for Eliza, doesn’t work. A screw has been removed, he notes, “as if someone was trying to deliberately stop time.” Charles’ maid comes in as Charles tries to fix the clock, and Charles wonders aloud about how a man is to know whether or not he’s found the “right woman.” The maid says, sagely, that “time will tell.” Charles inserts a screw into the clock, winds it, and it starts spinning wildly. Charles passes out cold.
We flash to a portrait of Charles on a wall, hanging over a group of tourists being addressed by a guide in an old-fashioned maid’s costume. It’s the present day, and the guide, our heroine Megan Turner, is introducing the assembled group to the figure in the portrait: “Charles Whitley, the owner of this mansion.” It appears that now, in the present day, Charles Whitley’s home has been preserved and turned into a historical museum. Megan tells the tourists a little Charles Whitley lore: he was an inventor, a millionaire by age 21, who disappeared mysteriously one week before Christmas in 1903. No one knows where he went or why.
Still in the present day, we cut to Charles Whitley, waking up in the same study where he passed out… except, everything looks different. For one thing, the desk where Charles had been seated while working on the clock? Is now encased in glass, a museum display. Above the doorway is a sign, reading: “Smile, you’re on camera.” Charles is confused. He leaves the study, comes to the top of the grand stairwell, and sees the tour group. He shouts: “Excuse me - what are you people doing in my house?”
Charles storms down the stairs, looking around. “Where did these decorations come from?” he barks. “I did not authorize this expenditure!” The actors in historical garb, all of whom are portraying members of Charles’ family and staff, play along, assuming Charles is just a newly-hired actor trying to be Extra Method. Charles orders all of the tourists to leave. The fake Eliza hurriedly ushers them into the gift shop, while Megan is left to deal with Charles. She introduces herself as the museum director (who also leads tour groups, apparently - like, get some interns, damn) and asks Charles if “the agency” sent him. She asks him to leave, but Charles is like “why would I leave my own house?” The sheriff is sent for.
Megan informs Charles of the year, and asks him if he really believes he is from the past. He’s like “I don’t believe it; I know it.” Megan tells him that she wrote her dissertation on Charles Whitley. He’s like: that’s weird. The sheriff arrives to cart Charles away, but before he leaves Charles tells Megan that there’s a secret compartment in the floor of his study. If she looks for it, she’ll find proof to support his claims.
Historians and/or museum professionals: avert your eyes. Megan, the director of this historical museum and a Ph.D in [I presume] history, taps her toe on, like, three different floorboards in the study, hears a hollow sound, and gently lifts up a portion of the museum floor. It is, indeed, a secret compartment, never before found in 100+ years, throughout the historical restoration of the building, but unearthed today, now, with several light footsteps.
Inside this compartment, Megan finds cobwebs gently nestling a perfectly preserved notebook of drawings, dated 1903. The pages of this notebook are laughably, hilariously white. Megan takes the notebook, runs to the sheriff’s office, and springs Charles from the slammer. Charles says, “I thought you didn’t believe me.” And Megan’s like, I didn’t, but then I found this notebook, plus I noticed you have a scar on your hand that matches the scar that Charles Whitley got from a steel mill accident at age 18, so OBVIOUSLY you are from the past. “It is very nice to meet you, Charles Whitley,” she says, and then takes him out for pizza.
After dinner, Charles and Megan go for a walk. Megan tells Charles that she is switching from museum work to teaching; her final interview for a professor job “at the university” is coming up next week. Because it’s that easy. Megan loves the museum and isn’t sure she wants to leave, but both of her parents were academics, and teaching is the family business. Charles tells Megan about how he had fought with Eliza before passing out, and asks Megan if she knows what happened to Eliza after he disappeared. Megan starts to answer him, but then Charles freaks out as they walk past the site of his family’s steel mill, which is no longer there. Megan tells him that after he disappeared, all of his assets were liquidated. He has nothing but his name. Charles is shook. “I have to go back to 1903 and stop this,” he says. “I need your help.”
Later, we experience the Hallmark version of madcap hilarity as Megan gets Charles settled into his old bedroom for the night. Which is a HISTORICAL LANDMARK now, but ok? Charles looks into the TV screen and is like, I can’t see myself in this mirror. He figures out the remote control and eventually goes to bed.
The next morning, Charles and Megan decide to keep up the ruse that Charles is just another actor by having him play himself during the day’s tours of the mansion. But when Megan brings the first tour group through the study, Charles doesn’t know what to say. Megan tries to prompt him, all “What are you working on, Mr. Whitley?” And Charles is like “Oh… a new milling system.” Megan asks him to tell the group more about that, and he says, “um… it’s… for the mill.” Ok, heh. The guests stare, and Megan ushers them out.
The next day, Megan takes Charles to a menswear store and buys him modern clothes. Megan takes a selfie of them, then explains the concept of the internet. His mind = blown. They walk and shop and bond, and then they run into Megan’s parents. Megan introduces them. Her dad asks Charles, “So, you're from Cutter Springs? How is it that we’ve never met you before?” Megan quickly tells her parents that Charles travels a lot, and Charles interjects: “I actually travelled quite a great distance to be here today.” GET IT? Dad asks Megan if she’s heard anything from the university about her application. Megan says that her interview is coming up that week, to which her mom replies, “Oh honey, I wouldn’t worry about it. With your Ph.D, you’re a shoo-in.”
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA.
Then Megan’s mom mentions the upcoming “Christmas moon,” which is apparently when there are two full moons during the month of December. I have no idea if this is a real thing and I don’t want to google it, so somebody tell me? Charles, upon hearing the words “Christmas moon,” jumps up and runs off. Megan is like, what? She gets up and follows him. Charles asks her to look up a date on her phone, and verifies that the day he disappeared was a Christmas moon. He tells Megan about the engraving on his clock. “I think if I’m going to make it back to 1903, I need to do the same thing I did back then,” he purports. “I need to find the clock.”
So Megan and Charles head back to the mansion to search for the clock, to no avail. They even search the online catalog of the museum’s holdings, but still find nothing. Megan wonders if it got liquidated at an auction during a previous year.
Later, Charles reads time travel novels and sulks. Megan gives him a pep talk about “the Charles Whitley I know” and tells him he can belong anywhere he decides to, even here in the present. She gives him an invite to the Christmas Eve fundraiser at the mansion and leaves. Charles is chastened.
That evening, Charles agrees to accompany Megan to her parents’ house for dinner and Christmas tree decorating. He brings a bottle of wine from 1899, and everyone’s like, oh, that’s perfectly normal and acceptable. Megan’s mom whispers, “He’s such a gentleman,” and Megan responds: “It’s complicated.” Mom says, “You like him? It’s not that complicated.” But mom, he’s a literal ghoul. Megan reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas aloud to some children and Charles watches her from across the room like she’s doing porn.
But wait! Megan reveals to Charles that, actually, she DOES know what happened to Eliza after Charles’ mysterious disappearance in the past. Turns out that Eliza married Charles’ most bitter rival and went on to live happily with him for 60+ years. Charles is startled by this news. He thanks Megan for telling him the truth, then goes off on a solitary Christmas walk, as one does. Charles winds up in a diner where he takes a seat at the counter next to one of the other actors from the museum. The two men have a heart to heart about life not going how you thought it would go. Charles says, sagely, “Sometimes where we end up is out of our hands, but who we end up with.. that’s another matter. Almost any journey can have a happy ending if you’re with someone you love.”
The next day, Megan goes to her faculty interview. As she sits in a lounge waiting for the interview to begin, she gazes at a collection of artifacts in a glass case and sees… Charles’ Christmas clock. A woman shows up to walk Megan back for her interview and Megan, smiling, says to her, “Can I ask you a favor?”
Later that day at the mansion, Charles enters the study and, hey, there’s his clock, sitting on the desk! Apparently Megan was just allowed to borrow it? Megan and Charles apologize to one another for their unpleasant conversation the other night. Megan’s like: it’s the Christmas moon tonight, so you can try and go back to 1903 if you want to. Charles says he wants to stay for the Christmas Eve party before deciding what to do.
Flash forward to the party. There is mingling and then there are presentations delivered to the assembled guests. Charles makes a speech in character as himself, talking about letting go of the past and making new Christmas memories. “If you live in the present with hope, kindless, and love, it’s a great place to be,” he Hallmarks.
After chatting with her parents (and breaking the news to them that she turned down the faculty job to follow her heart), Megan goes up to the study to look for Charles. She is startled to find the office empty, with the Christmas clock sitting on the table. Did Charles leave without saying goodbye? Of course not - he walks in behind her, picks up the clock, and removes a screw so that it will stop working. Then he gives her a necklace and they kiss.
Rating: 3 of 10 history Ph.Ds for ye olde Christmas historical reenactments. Warning for THIS IS NOT HOW ANYTHING WORKS.
We open on Cutter Springs, NY in the year 1903. At an auction, our hero Charles Whitley bids on and wins a Christmas clock, engraved with the following words: “Wind once in Christmas moon; True love will find you soon.” Charles heads home to his mansion, clock in hand, and is greeted by his fiance Eliza waiting for him in the parlor. Eliza wants Charles to join her for her parents’ Christmas party, but Charles declines. “I have too much work to do and not enough time to do it,” he says, pointing out that he is trying to modernize their family’s steel mill by next year. “You’re always living in the future,” Eliza protests. Charles replies, with all of Hallmark’s trademark subtlety: “Why not? The future’s a nice place, full of possibilities and new ideas.”
Later, in his study, Charles discovers that the Christmas clock he purchased earlier, intended as a gift for Eliza, doesn’t work. A screw has been removed, he notes, “as if someone was trying to deliberately stop time.” Charles’ maid comes in as Charles tries to fix the clock, and Charles wonders aloud about how a man is to know whether or not he’s found the “right woman.” The maid says, sagely, that “time will tell.” Charles inserts a screw into the clock, winds it, and it starts spinning wildly. Charles passes out cold.
We flash to a portrait of Charles on a wall, hanging over a group of tourists being addressed by a guide in an old-fashioned maid’s costume. It’s the present day, and the guide, our heroine Megan Turner, is introducing the assembled group to the figure in the portrait: “Charles Whitley, the owner of this mansion.” It appears that now, in the present day, Charles Whitley’s home has been preserved and turned into a historical museum. Megan tells the tourists a little Charles Whitley lore: he was an inventor, a millionaire by age 21, who disappeared mysteriously one week before Christmas in 1903. No one knows where he went or why.
Still in the present day, we cut to Charles Whitley, waking up in the same study where he passed out… except, everything looks different. For one thing, the desk where Charles had been seated while working on the clock? Is now encased in glass, a museum display. Above the doorway is a sign, reading: “Smile, you’re on camera.” Charles is confused. He leaves the study, comes to the top of the grand stairwell, and sees the tour group. He shouts: “Excuse me - what are you people doing in my house?”
Charles storms down the stairs, looking around. “Where did these decorations come from?” he barks. “I did not authorize this expenditure!” The actors in historical garb, all of whom are portraying members of Charles’ family and staff, play along, assuming Charles is just a newly-hired actor trying to be Extra Method. Charles orders all of the tourists to leave. The fake Eliza hurriedly ushers them into the gift shop, while Megan is left to deal with Charles. She introduces herself as the museum director (who also leads tour groups, apparently - like, get some interns, damn) and asks Charles if “the agency” sent him. She asks him to leave, but Charles is like “why would I leave my own house?” The sheriff is sent for.
Megan informs Charles of the year, and asks him if he really believes he is from the past. He’s like “I don’t believe it; I know it.” Megan tells him that she wrote her dissertation on Charles Whitley. He’s like: that’s weird. The sheriff arrives to cart Charles away, but before he leaves Charles tells Megan that there’s a secret compartment in the floor of his study. If she looks for it, she’ll find proof to support his claims.
Historians and/or museum professionals: avert your eyes. Megan, the director of this historical museum and a Ph.D in [I presume] history, taps her toe on, like, three different floorboards in the study, hears a hollow sound, and gently lifts up a portion of the museum floor. It is, indeed, a secret compartment, never before found in 100+ years, throughout the historical restoration of the building, but unearthed today, now, with several light footsteps.
Inside this compartment, Megan finds cobwebs gently nestling a perfectly preserved notebook of drawings, dated 1903. The pages of this notebook are laughably, hilariously white. Megan takes the notebook, runs to the sheriff’s office, and springs Charles from the slammer. Charles says, “I thought you didn’t believe me.” And Megan’s like, I didn’t, but then I found this notebook, plus I noticed you have a scar on your hand that matches the scar that Charles Whitley got from a steel mill accident at age 18, so OBVIOUSLY you are from the past. “It is very nice to meet you, Charles Whitley,” she says, and then takes him out for pizza.
After dinner, Charles and Megan go for a walk. Megan tells Charles that she is switching from museum work to teaching; her final interview for a professor job “at the university” is coming up next week. Because it’s that easy. Megan loves the museum and isn’t sure she wants to leave, but both of her parents were academics, and teaching is the family business. Charles tells Megan about how he had fought with Eliza before passing out, and asks Megan if she knows what happened to Eliza after he disappeared. Megan starts to answer him, but then Charles freaks out as they walk past the site of his family’s steel mill, which is no longer there. Megan tells him that after he disappeared, all of his assets were liquidated. He has nothing but his name. Charles is shook. “I have to go back to 1903 and stop this,” he says. “I need your help.”
Later, we experience the Hallmark version of madcap hilarity as Megan gets Charles settled into his old bedroom for the night. Which is a HISTORICAL LANDMARK now, but ok? Charles looks into the TV screen and is like, I can’t see myself in this mirror. He figures out the remote control and eventually goes to bed.
The next morning, Charles and Megan decide to keep up the ruse that Charles is just another actor by having him play himself during the day’s tours of the mansion. But when Megan brings the first tour group through the study, Charles doesn’t know what to say. Megan tries to prompt him, all “What are you working on, Mr. Whitley?” And Charles is like “Oh… a new milling system.” Megan asks him to tell the group more about that, and he says, “um… it’s… for the mill.” Ok, heh. The guests stare, and Megan ushers them out.
The next day, Megan takes Charles to a menswear store and buys him modern clothes. Megan takes a selfie of them, then explains the concept of the internet. His mind = blown. They walk and shop and bond, and then they run into Megan’s parents. Megan introduces them. Her dad asks Charles, “So, you're from Cutter Springs? How is it that we’ve never met you before?” Megan quickly tells her parents that Charles travels a lot, and Charles interjects: “I actually travelled quite a great distance to be here today.” GET IT? Dad asks Megan if she’s heard anything from the university about her application. Megan says that her interview is coming up that week, to which her mom replies, “Oh honey, I wouldn’t worry about it. With your Ph.D, you’re a shoo-in.”
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA.
Then Megan’s mom mentions the upcoming “Christmas moon,” which is apparently when there are two full moons during the month of December. I have no idea if this is a real thing and I don’t want to google it, so somebody tell me? Charles, upon hearing the words “Christmas moon,” jumps up and runs off. Megan is like, what? She gets up and follows him. Charles asks her to look up a date on her phone, and verifies that the day he disappeared was a Christmas moon. He tells Megan about the engraving on his clock. “I think if I’m going to make it back to 1903, I need to do the same thing I did back then,” he purports. “I need to find the clock.”
So Megan and Charles head back to the mansion to search for the clock, to no avail. They even search the online catalog of the museum’s holdings, but still find nothing. Megan wonders if it got liquidated at an auction during a previous year.
Later, Charles reads time travel novels and sulks. Megan gives him a pep talk about “the Charles Whitley I know” and tells him he can belong anywhere he decides to, even here in the present. She gives him an invite to the Christmas Eve fundraiser at the mansion and leaves. Charles is chastened.
That evening, Charles agrees to accompany Megan to her parents’ house for dinner and Christmas tree decorating. He brings a bottle of wine from 1899, and everyone’s like, oh, that’s perfectly normal and acceptable. Megan’s mom whispers, “He’s such a gentleman,” and Megan responds: “It’s complicated.” Mom says, “You like him? It’s not that complicated.” But mom, he’s a literal ghoul. Megan reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas aloud to some children and Charles watches her from across the room like she’s doing porn.
But wait! Megan reveals to Charles that, actually, she DOES know what happened to Eliza after Charles’ mysterious disappearance in the past. Turns out that Eliza married Charles’ most bitter rival and went on to live happily with him for 60+ years. Charles is startled by this news. He thanks Megan for telling him the truth, then goes off on a solitary Christmas walk, as one does. Charles winds up in a diner where he takes a seat at the counter next to one of the other actors from the museum. The two men have a heart to heart about life not going how you thought it would go. Charles says, sagely, “Sometimes where we end up is out of our hands, but who we end up with.. that’s another matter. Almost any journey can have a happy ending if you’re with someone you love.”
The next day, Megan goes to her faculty interview. As she sits in a lounge waiting for the interview to begin, she gazes at a collection of artifacts in a glass case and sees… Charles’ Christmas clock. A woman shows up to walk Megan back for her interview and Megan, smiling, says to her, “Can I ask you a favor?”
Later that day at the mansion, Charles enters the study and, hey, there’s his clock, sitting on the desk! Apparently Megan was just allowed to borrow it? Megan and Charles apologize to one another for their unpleasant conversation the other night. Megan’s like: it’s the Christmas moon tonight, so you can try and go back to 1903 if you want to. Charles says he wants to stay for the Christmas Eve party before deciding what to do.
Flash forward to the party. There is mingling and then there are presentations delivered to the assembled guests. Charles makes a speech in character as himself, talking about letting go of the past and making new Christmas memories. “If you live in the present with hope, kindless, and love, it’s a great place to be,” he Hallmarks.
After chatting with her parents (and breaking the news to them that she turned down the faculty job to follow her heart), Megan goes up to the study to look for Charles. She is startled to find the office empty, with the Christmas clock sitting on the table. Did Charles leave without saying goodbye? Of course not - he walks in behind her, picks up the clock, and removes a screw so that it will stop working. Then he gives her a necklace and they kiss.
Rating: 3 of 10 history Ph.Ds for ye olde Christmas historical reenactments. Warning for THIS IS NOT HOW ANYTHING WORKS.
Because you asked some one to, I googled the 2 moons in December thing and no the internet agrees that nothing in this movie is how things work. Probably because full moons were labeled in relation to weather and harvest and pagan things.
ReplyDeleteThe second full moon in a month is generally referred to as a blue moon. So, I don't think they are as rare as the phrase "once in a blue moon" implies -- they happen about once every 2.5 years.
Also, I did learn the December full moon is called the Full Cold Moon. So, I am pleased about this knowledge gain. This is the closest this movie got to teaching me about history, learning, or science.