I Can't Be Snarky, This Movie is Genuinely Lovely

I am not particularly interested in time travel. There's the stark historical reality that, as a woman, I'm already living in basically the only era where I can expect to have (some) fundamental rights. But also, I'm also a huge fan of running water, electricity, and grocery stores where I can find the world's bounty at my fingertips. And ice. Do you know how hard it used to be to get ice, especially in the climates where you really need it? So I probably wouldn't travel back in time. But if I did, I could do worse than to travel back to a 1940s movie set, filming at the gorgeous Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina.That's the setting for A Biltmore Christmas, which is possibly the best Hallmark movie I've ever watched.

Lucy Collins (Bethany Joy Lenz) is a screenwriter working on a reboot of His Merry Wife!, a Christmas classic from the 1940s. Lucy doesn't like schmaltzy romances with happy endings, and she wants to change the ending of this beloved film to make it more realistic. (Lucy, honey, one of the lead characters of this movie is a ghost, so maybe realistic isn't part of the brief.) Anyway, her boss sends her to visit the Biltmore estate so she can experience the magic first hand, even though doing so requires her to miss Christmas with her own family. When Lucy is taking a tour of the hotel, she finds an hourglass that plays a prominent part in the film. When she turns it over, she's propelled back in time to the filming of the original movie. One of the actors, Jack Huston (Kristoffer Polaha) clocks immediately that she's an outsider, but he likes her no-nonsense attitude and plucky practicality. As Lucy spends more time in the past, she and Jack start to fall for each other, but Lucy knows she could be yanked back to the present at any time. Will they be able to reach across time and find each other?

My favorite thing about this movie is that Lucy is not an idiot. She immediately figures out that she's gone back in time, that the hourglass is the method, and how important it is that His Merry Wife! gets made to keep history on track. She doesn't need some sort of Santa-coded old man or manic elfin coworker to explain everything to her. I mean, there is a Santa-coded old man (Jonathan Frakes) but he's mostly clueless. And there is a manic elfin co-conspirator (A.K. Benninghofen) but she mostly seems like a woman who doesn't have enough friends. And Jack isn't an idiot either. Maybe it's just the 1940s suits, but he comes across as stalwart and upright, a straight-shooter who doesn't tolerate unfairness or underhanded tactics. He says things like "It can't any more meaningful than two lonely hearts finding a little slice of happiness in this crazy world." Not gonna lie, I teared up a little at that one.

Lenz and Polaha have great chemistry, and it's showcased by the gorgeous setting of the Biltmore House. Built by the world's finest craftsmen for George Vanderbilt in 1895, the chateau has 250 rooms filled with priceless antiques and historical artifacts. Most Hallmark movies look like they were filmed on the same redressed set in Toronto, and this movie really benefits from the luxurious Gilded Age setting. When Lucy and Jack are strolling the estate in their 1940s finery, it genuinely feels like an old Hollywood romance. The ending is just as unrealistic as that of His Merry Wife!, but by then Lucy has learned that magic is sometimes more real than reality.

Could you watch this with you grandma? Girl, this is already your grandma's favorite movie. If you watch it with her, she'll be thrilled. And while you're at it, ask what her very favorite Hallmark movie is, and let me know!