Today's reassuring but somewhat inessential Hallmark joint is 2010’s An Old-Fashioned Christmas, a period tale aimed squarely at the Austen/Bronte crowd. Don McBrearty’s film follows two American women, Isabella (Jacqueline Bisset) and Tilly (Catherine Steadman) who take a trip to quaint, late 1800s Ireland. Isabella is here to visit an old suitor who’s now a fancy earl in a big stately home, while Tilly is looking to find a publisher for her novel. At Christmas time, of course.
It's all very old-timey and subdued, with a humorous array of dodgy accents on show. There’s some mild intrigue as romantic sparks fly between Tilly, who ‘s already engaged to be wed, and the earl’s handsome, but dangerous son Cameron (Leon Ockenden). There’s a bit of will-she-won’t-she drama, but we soon learn that Cameron is a bit of a cad and that he and his mother are actually plotting to get Tilly to marry him as the family is secretly broke. The bastards.
It's set in a time before telly, so there’s lots of sitting around, nobody saying how they really feel, giving furtive glances and flirting over cups of tea while knitting and stuff. There’s also a bit of the coquettish tree decorating and a few ‘almost’ kisses. This might be titillating if not for the fact this is a family-friendly Hallmark thing, so I’m aware that things are not going to get even slightly saucy.
To be honest, this film is probably brilliant if you’re into the whole beige period drama thing, but it bores me. Ockenden’s accent, lurching from English to Irish to god-knows in the space of a breath, is distracting, but he does seem kind of cool at times, peacocking about like a rockstar.
Things spice up a bit when Tilly’s fiancé (Christopher Turner) turns up, just as she starts falling for the Irish rogue. This leads to a fencing duel between the boys that wakes me up, but it’s really tame and everyone is terribly polite about it all. Yawn.
This is another one where Christmas doesn’t feature much in the plot, and though everyone in it is fine, it does nothing for me. There’s not much in the way of festive cheer and it doesn’t radiate the warmth that I need, nay demand from these sorts of films. But you might like it if you’re into this sort of thing, I don’t know.
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