Hallmark For All Seasons

“A Timeless Christmas” was one of the movies on my list of movies I was looking forward to – it starred Erin Cahill, a leading lady I’m growing quite fond of with every movie I see her in, and Ryan Paevey, who’s growing on me as well.  Add in director Ron Oliver and time travel, and I would be hard-pressed to find another Hallmark movie this season that might interest me more.  The movie was based on the book of the same name, A Timeless Christmas by Alexis Stanton (affiliate link).

In a nutshell

The movie was gorgeous to look at with fun writing and great performances.  It was a win!

Plot

Charles Whitley travels from 1903 to 2020 where he meets Megan Turner and experiences a 21st Century Christmas.

Actors

I’ve said it often before that I was not a fan of Ryan Paevey the first time I saw him (as Mr. Darcy in the Hallmark Darcy movies).  But man, oh man, has he grown on me in the past couple of years.  I really liked him in “A Timeless Christmas.”  He had some funny fish-out-of-water moments that I really enjoyed.  And I liked how his character started out stiff and guarded, but then relaxed as the movie went on.  This is something I felt he never quite accomplished in the Darcy movies (and that’s probably why I don’t like those movies).  However, he was perfection as Charles in this movie.

Erin Cahill is just delightful.  I adore her so much, from her acting to her re-acting, and from the sweet freckles on her face to her perfect upturned bow mouth.  She is gorgeous and also benefits from being a really great actress.

Kenny! Kenny Kwon was in the house!  I love that Ron Oliver has his recurring character. This time around actor Nelson Wong played Megan’s museum assistant director, Kenny.  And I loved that he had many more scenes than he typically does.

Six Degrees of Polaha: I’ve matched both Paevey and Cahill in the past, so no game this time.

Chemistry

Such great chemistry between Paevey and Cahill.  It was a fabulous pairing from beginning to end.  I think it would have been fun to have MORE of Charles reacting to the modern world while Megan teaches him about it because Paevey and Cahill played the few scenes we got very well.  My favorite was when he got the bill for the pizza and announced, “$23? That’s highway robbery!” I also loved the moment after Charles got the tree topper on the tree and the brother wanted to give him a high-five but Charles had no idea what the guy was doing.  It was subtle but funny.  It’s for this reason that I’ve already purchased the book so that I can read the scenarios which undoubtedly got cut for time to fit the book into an 84-minute movie plus commercials.

Tropes

Had the movie been more about showing Charles the modern world, I suspect we’d have had more tropes.  As it was, we got hot cocoa straight out of the gate, as well as carolers standing on the gorgeous front porch of the Whitley house.  We had a tree lighting, a fabulous trip & fall, a big scarf, and mild decorating of the tree (complete with a finial worthy Christmas at the Plaza).

Bingo Card Score for “A Timeless Christmas”

I only covered 4 spots on my card.  An all-time low.  But that’s okay because the movie was so enjoyable.  Feel free to download my free bingo cards and play along!

Did I Hear/See That Right?

I did take issue with a few things.  And no, they are not time travel-related – I never quibble about movie mechanics involving time travel.  I also won’t go into the anachronisms of the scenes that took place in the past, if only because this is not a big-budget movie that can afford to take the time and money needed to make sure that the scenes in the past were period-appropriate. However, I did have two things that made me go “hmmmm.”

First, in the opening scene, Charles is at an auction where he purchases the clock.  The next item up for bid was a chaise lounge, with an opening bid of $10, and going up in increments of $10 from there.  Now, I know I was alive in 1903 but it wasn’t hard to find some year-appropriate pricing online.  Did you know that a couch in 1903 could be had for $5?  And that a train trip from Newark, NJ to San Francisco, CA cost $67?  As such, there’s no way even a Richie Rich is going to waste $30-40 on a chaise lounge in 1903 unless is was previously owned by Louis XIII.

Secondly, at some point, Megan tells Charles that she wrote her Ph.D. dissertation about him.  Now, I had to write a thesis (another word for dissertation) my senior year of college in order to graduate.  My thesis was on the youth culture of the 1960s.  But in my thesis, I had to attempt to PROVE something (in my case, I posited that the sway of the 1960’s youth culture is what shaped much of the decade into what it became). And then I had to go before a trio of professors and participate in an oral examination to earn my final grade.  So, what on earth was Megan’s dissertation proving about Charles Whitley?

Feelgoods

For a time travel movie, I was surprised by how many sweet things I saw/felt.

The first thing, the one that made me laugh, was the painting of Charles Whitley.  My first thought was, “That’s Kramer!”  I wish I had done a screengrab of the Whitley painting before I deleted the movie off my Tivo.  That way I could do a side-by-side comparison of the Whitley painting with the painting of Kramer in “Seinfeld.”

I know some people took issue with the old photos in the family slide show were too pristine.  However, I have very fond memories of going to my grandparents’ house and sitting in their little TV room which had a family history wall – my sister and I were the lowest on the wall, and going up the wall there were previous generations.  My mom and uncle, their parents, THEIR parents, and so on.  Along the top near the ceiling were the oldest photos – some of them almost definitely dating back to the early 1900s.

Given that Megan’s family had these photos in digital form, it’s not hard to believe that the family, once that technology became available, had those photos saved digitally to preserve them for a lifetime.  AND given the fact that the family was associated with the Whitley family history as well meant the photos would have been taken care of compared to a regular family who just happens to have a few old photos laying around.  So I loved the slide show (even though that HAS to be a relationship killer to have the new guy sit and watch a family slide show).

Lastly, I LOVED LOVED LOVED her purple dress.  It reminded me of something Elizabeth would wear in “When Calls the Heart,” but it was the color and how gorgeous it looked on Erin Cahill.  Simple gorgeous.

Re-watchability

I’ve already watched this a second time, although I did delete it from my Tivo after that second viewing.  But when it re-airs, chances are high I’ll watch it again!  I also hope that we get another movie out of that clock.  At the beginning of the movie as Charles attempts to fix the clock he notes that a wire has been cut, and at the end of the movie he cuts the wire again to make sure he doesn’t time travel again.  So that means someone prior to 1903 time traveled and found true love in that time period.  I want to see that story, too!

The Ranking

A new movie makes it into the Top 5! “A Timeless Christmas” is sitting pretty at #4 for the year.

1. One Royal Holiday (air date: Oct 31) – 722 pts – weighted score: 121.8 (85.5%)
2. On the 12th Date of Christmas (air date: Nov 1) – 707 pts – weighted score: 119.2 (83.6%)
3. Sweet Autumn (air date: Oct 17) – 693 pts – weighted score: 118.5 (83.1%)
4. A Timeless Christmas (air date: Nov 15) – 700 pts – weighted score: 117.7 (82.6%)
5. Deliver by Christmas (air date: Oct 25) – 697 pts – weighted score: 117.4 (82.4%)
6. Christmas With the Darlings (air date: Nov 8) – 691 pts – weighted score: 117.2 (82.2%)
7. Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater (air date: Nov 7) – 681 pts – weighted score: 115.8 (81.2%)
8. The Christmas Bow (air date: Nov 8) – 676 pts – weighted score: 113.2 (79.4%)
9. Cranberry Christmas (air date: Oct 31) – 650 pts – weighted score: 112.1 (78.6%)
10. Matching Hearts (air date: Feb 8) – 640 pts – weighted score: 109.0 (76.5%)
11. Winter in Vail (air date: Jan 4) – 623 pts – weighted score: 108.8 (76.4%)
12. Wedding Every Weekend (air date: Aug 15) – 639 pts – weighted score: 108.3 (76.0%)
13. Love in Store (air date: Feb 22) – 637 pts – weighted score: 108.2 (75.9%)
14. Christmas in Vienna (air date: Nov 14) – 636 pts – weighted score: 107.0 (75.1%)
15. Love on Harbor Island (air date: Aug 8) – 634 pts – weighted score: 106.9 (75.0%)
16. The Secret Ingredient (air date: Feb 15) – 617 pts – weighted score: 105.2 (73.8%)
17. Country at Heart (air date: Oct 3) – 611 pts – weighted score: 104.1 (73.1%)
18. You’re Bacon Me Crazy (air date: Apr 4) – 591 pts – weighted score: 104.0 (72.9%)
19. My Best Friend’s Bouquet (air date: Oct 10) – 599 pts – weighted score: 103.4 (72.5%)
20. The Christmas Ring (air date: Nov 7) – 609 pts – weighted score: 103.3 (72.5%)
21. Fashionably Yours (air date: Apr 11) – 594 pts – weighted score: 102.6 (72.0%)
22. Follow Your Heart (air date: Oct 4) – 585 pts – weighted score: 101.6 (71.3%)
23. Christmas Tree Lane (air date: Oct 24) – 574 pts – weighted score: 100.3 (70.4%)
24. A Valentine’s Match (air date: Feb 1) – 562 pts – weighted score: 99.8 (70.0%)
25. Love On Iceland (air date: Jan 18) – 563 pts – weighted score: 99.4 (69.7%)
26. Hearts of Winter (air date: Jan 25) – 561 pts – weighted score: 98.2 (68.9%)
27. Jingle Bell Bride (air date: Oct 24) – 558 pts – weighted score: 97.9 (68.7%)
28. Just My Type (air date: Mar 28) – 565 pts – weighted score: 95.4% (66.9%)
29. Bad Date Chronicles (air date: Feb 28) – 520 pts – weighted score: 91.0 (63.9%)
30. Love in Winterland (air date: Jan 11) – 508 pts – weighted score: 90.7 (63.6%)
31. Nature of Love (air date: Apr 18) – 520 pts – weighted score: 90.3 (63.3%)
32. Chateau Christmas (air date: Oct 25) – 502 pts – weighted score: 87.3 (61.3%)
33. Amazing Winter Romance (air date: Jan 20) – 487 pts – weighted score: 85.6 (60.1%)
34. Love Under the Olive Tree (air date: June 20) – 473 pts – weighted score: 85.0 (59.6%)
35. In the Key of Love (air date: Mar 14) – 470 pts – weighted score: 82.5 (57.9%)
36. Love in the Forecast (air date: Jun 13) – 440 pts – weighted score: 72.5 (50.8%)
37. Midway to Love (air date: June 26) – 410 pts – weighted score: 69.0 (48.4%)
38. Falling at Look Lodge (air date: Sept 26) – 350 pts – weighted score: 64.0 (44.9%)
39. Romance in the Air (air date: Aug 1) – 367 pts – weighted score: 63.2 (44.3%)
40. Follow Me to Daisy Hills (air date: Sept 19) – 337 pts – weighted score: 62.8 (44.1%)
41. How to Train Your Husband (air date: May 16) – 350 pts – weighted score: 62.5 (43.9%)

To see where this movie lands in my overall rankings of Hallmark movies, visit my Hallmark Movie Rankings page!

What did you think of “A Timeless Christmas”?  Comment below and let me know!