Hallmark movies are set in another universe. We know this. It may superficially resemble our own—its population is convincingly humanoid, if overly scrubbed, and seems to share certain Earth holiday customs, albeit in a more heightened way than many of us will experience—but there are certain tells.
For example, the new Hallmark movie The Christmas Baby takes place in somewhere the characters repeatedly refer to as Upstate New York—and not a small, made-up town in the area, as with the recent movie Wake Up Dead Man. No, The Christmas Baby mentions Schenectady, Saratoga, and its primary location of Albany, all of which are real places. (The Upstate New York Museum, where one character supposedly worked on a major exhibit, though, is made up.)
However, I grew up in the actual Saratoga, near the actual Albany. In contrast to how the latter is depicted here, Albany is not, in fact, mostly sustained by quaint and Christmas-themed shops. It is also unlikely that these streets and shops would be so tastefully, lightly snow-capped during December. Where’s the slush and biting wind? Where’s the mess? Where’s the Egg in the background?
These are minor blips, of course, in service of The Christmas Baby taking place in a warmer, cheerier universe.
Here, married couple Erin (Ali Liebert) and Kelly (Katherine Barrell), finding an abandoned baby named Nicholas with a mysterious note (entreating them, personally, to please take care of him!), is framed as only slightly more serious than a package mix-up at the wrap-and-ship business that Erin runs. (Again: The upstate winters are long, but the holiday season is the same length, and not necessarily enough to sustain a year-round gift-wrapping-and-shipping business.)
Kelly is more civic-minded: the arrival of the baby interferes with a night where she’s supposed to receive an award for her apparently full-time job as a scenic designer for community theaters, museums, and so forth. (Let’s hope the “so forth” includes some terrific grant money processed before Trump 2.0.)
A non-expert in the Hallmark universe might wonder whether gay couples are common there or have faced civil rights struggles similar to those in our world. The movie’s answer to the latter is yeah, probably; Erin and Kelly allude to it briefly but powerfully.
To the former, the broad answer is sort of; the channel has been increasing same-sex content over the past five years or so. The Christmas Baby, sweet-natured as it is by design, definitely feels like the cautious, family-minded work of a company still dipping its toes in those waters.
Even the couple’s ready-made Saturday Night Live analogs feel slightly out of date; Erin and Kelly are pretty decent ringers for Kate McKinnon and Chloe Fineman, respectively. Fineman is still on the show, but McKinnon isn’t. Very Season 47, in other words.
The Christmas Baby treads so lightly around a serious subject that even its biggest mix-ups and misunderstandings barely register. Most of it is soul-searching about whether a couple who never planned to have children can trust their unexpectedly swelling feelings of love toward this little bundle, and whether their busy lives can realistically accommodate such a major change.
It’s about halfway between thoughtful consideration of suddenly shifted priorities, and corporate-mandated domestication supremacy. But it might be nice if a movie about a baby, even a Hallmark one, contained a stronger sense of what babies are actually like (besides cute, which this one most assuredly is—great baby casting).
For example: Nicholas, at what looks like two months or so, is probably not yet teething, as one of his foster moms confidently offhands to a sitter. Also, and this goes for movies from all studios, universes, and walks of life: the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that sleeping areas be kept clear of loose blankets, pillows, and other soft objects. Set dressers can never bring themselves to abide by this.
The most realistic moment of this cute but overextended 84 minutes comes when, during the emotional hustle and bustle of the climax, little baby Nicky unceremoniously falls asleep. Even committed Hallmark fans might understand how he feels.
