A Newport Christmas (2025)
Gilded Age: Hallmark-style
Ginna Claire Mason has never met a period costume or setting she didn’t love and fit right into. As a late Gilded Age, Rhode Island socialite who wants to do more than host parties and find a husband, Ella is a woman ahead of her time. Nick is a local historian… 120 years in the future. A magical Christmas comet brings them together, where she gets to see what life in 2025 is like before they ultimately both end up returning to 1905 and living out their lives in that era.
There were some of the standard tropes of a Christmas movie, with a tree lighting and some decorating montages, but overall this wasn’t really a “Christmas movie” and could have taken place at basically any other time.
The high point? Seasoned pros - Mason and Wes Brown - who appear to be game for anything, but whose talents were wasted here. After the highpoint that was A Carol for Two last year I had high hopes for this one but didn’t really feel the festive spirit wash over me. And despite filming in a legit Gilded Age mansion, I didn’t get that feeling of grandeur. Idea for producers: collaborate with HBO and just tag on a shooting day or two when that sweet premium cable money is footing the bill for set design. That should be easy to do, right? Lol - she says, from her life that has nothing to do with movie production.
Ella (Mason) is a charitable and spirited Newport socialite in 1905 who dreams of using her wealth to start a foundation to help others in town. After learning her father intends for her to become engaged to a man she’s never met at the upcoming Christmas Eve ball, Ella goes for a nighttime sail in her schooner to clear her head. Upon seeing a comet shoot across the sky, she wistfully wishes for a different life. Ella is shocked to suddenly find Nick (Brown), a sailor and local Newport historian, aboard her schooner and accuses him of being a stowaway. But Nick insists he owns the boat and a standoff ensues. Once on dry land, Ella realizes that somehow, she’s traveled from 1905 to 2025. As she spends time there and gets a glimpse at what her future in 1905 appears to be, she becomes reluctant to return, especially since she and Nick have grown close and she now knows how true love feels. But the legacy Ella built in her time – and the course of Newport’s history – risks being erased the longer she stays in the present, so the two plot a course for her trip back through time. But what awaits her at home is even more surprising that what she found in the future. Starring Ginna Claire Mason and Wes Brown.
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