A Timeless Christmas

Time travelling and Christmas is a win win but add both these two main leads and a great supporting cast and you have a really good movie. I will watch it again

Kudos to Hallmark for reaching beyond the usual holiday-romance formula and adding an element of science fiction. This film includes time travel and the dialogue even mentions H.G. Wells' classic "The Time Machine".

Industrialist Charles Whitley (Ryan Paevey) awakens one morning to find he has been transported more than a century into the future. He meets a beautiful twenty-first century woman, Megan Turner (Erin Cahill), who decides to help him return to his own time.

The first part of this story is very similar to "Time After Time", which is an excellent film from 1979 (not to be confused with "Somewhere in Time").

The two leads are excellent in their roles. Paevey is fairly convincing as the human anachronism, balancing mild bewilderment with romantic interest.

I expected a take on Kate and Leopold. It is that only in the main premise and maybe some other minor ways. It really is an unusual Christmas premise.

Ryan Paevey and Erin Cahill have a very comfortable chemistry. They have plenty of screen time together and watching them interact is enjoyable.

I really didn't know what to expect. There are some things that it is obvious are going to be important to the story. How or to what ultimate end was never certain in my mind. In fact the climax went differently than my guess. The last shot is interesting.

Funny total aside: my sister and I joke about enumerating all the little devices that appear in many of these movies. One of them is that in almost every romance movie, the leading lady comes down a set of stairs dressed beautifully and the leading male looks on in awe. Watch for the switcheroo on this.

I really enjoyed this Christmas movie. The time travel storyline along with some quality acting made this one (which is my 15th) my favorite thus far this 2020 Hallmark Christmas movie season. The script was pretty good too. Some nice heartwarming dialogue, which I liked (Charles Whitley speech, e.g., at the Christmas party). The acting was good. Erin Cahill had a strong performance; I have always thought she performed well in such roles. Ryan Paevey, the other lead, also had a good performance on the screen. And the chemistry between the two was fairly good, though I think we could have gotten a bit more from the male lead (Ryan) here. The props, dress, scenery and sets were beautiful. It was well done. I also enjoyed the Christmas atmosphere and feel of the movie, which is one of the things I like about Hallmark films. Overall, a very good Christmas movie by Hallmark this year. It is worth a watch.

Nobody should watch Hallmark films with massively high expectations, their Christmas output particularly. If a Hallmark fan or wanting to see as many Christmas films as possible, expectations would understandably be higher. They are very formulaic with most of them being more of the same narratively and structurally, apart from sporadic attempts at changes of pace. There are a fair share of them though that are surprisingly above average and even good amidst the many average and less ones.

The 2020 output from Hallmark did vary in quality but was not near as bad or wildly uneven as it could have been. None of the films from the batch were really terrible, and a small handful of them were actually very good. 'A Timeless Christmas' is one of the very good ones and benefits from having the most unique premise in a while for a Hallmark Christmas film and the performances. 'A Timeless Christmas' is a fine example of why Hallmark's Christmas output or even Hallmark in general should not be immediately scorned at.

Did find the final third a little too on the rushed side from trying to cram in a little too much with not enough time to explore it properly.

Have often found the music for Hallmark films over-used and in need of a toning down tonally too. There are pleasant moments here and there is some authentic atmosphere, but part of me did think it still could have been used less in placement and been more understated.

On the other hand, a lot is done very well indeed. Erin Cahill is heartfelt and charming, Hallmark do not always score when it comes to having female lead characters that are likeable, but they score here. She has a pleasing and hard to dislike chemistry with Ryan Paevey, equally appealing, and for me their romantic pairing was more rootable than most Hallmark romantic pairings. The supporting cast do more than solidly too.

There are some lovely locations here, complemented very well by the photography, and some pleasant moments in the soundtrack. The script is light-hearted without being too frothy and is not as cornball or as soapy as other Hallmark Christmas films. The story deserves a lot of credit for doing something different, a word usually not associated in the same sentence with Hallmark, and is a lot more creative than most Hallmark films. Concept-wise and its execution 'A Timeless Christmas' is to me in the top 5 of the most creative when it comes to Hallmark Christmas films, and is the most unique. It is not as formulaic and there is less of the Hallmark cliches. The story is also very charming and heart-warming and the time travel element is not wasted, avoiding convolution too.

Concluding, surprisingly very good which was not expected. 8/10.