MILWAUKEE — ‘Tis the season for new Hallmark Christmas movies. One of 2024’s premieres takes place in the Badger State.
“A ‘90s Christmas” is set in 1999 Milwaukee and follows Lucy, a "workaholic lawyer” as she finds herself alone on Christmas Eve.
“The movie is about a very ambitious and successful lawyer Lucy, who finds herself alone at Christmastime, celebrating her recent promotion and celebrating it alone,” Marni Banack, the director of the movie, said. “The people that she cares about have not been in her life recently.”
A rideshare unlike any other transports her back in 1999, the last time she had connections with her loved ones. Reliving her past, she can share in the holiday spirit with her mom, sister, best friend and her high school crush. With a chance to see where her relationships went askew, she has a chance to change her fate.
“In typical Hallmark fashion, she needed to be taught a lesson in a very comedic way,” Ryan Peckinpaugh, the film’s writer, said.
Although the film is set in Milwaukee, it wasn’t filmed in the Brew City. It was actually shot in Canada. Banack said while it would have been wonderful to film the movie in Milwaukee, they did not have the budget for it. She did say that there is some footage of Milwaukee included in the movie.
But for the creative team, the decision to set the story itself in Milwaukee mad perfect sense for a multitude of reasons.
“I always wanted to start the movie in Chicago as kind of like a nod to the ‘90s John Hughes’ movies that I grew up in, but [Lucy] needed to go home in the ‘90s and so I needed a place to set it,” Peckinpaugh explained. “I started kinda looking around at what was near [Chicago], but far enough away that she’s been taken far.
“Usually, when I do have to make decisions like that I either think to my own childhood or I think to sports and I actually do like the Milwaukee Brewers. I decided to check in on Milwaukee. I was there as a kid. I don’t remember a lot of it but I remember going to diners in Milwaukee and having other worldly pancakes,” he added. “Since pancakes actually play a role in this movie, I was like, ‘OK, this will work.’”
The film stars Eva Bourne, Chandler Massey, Katherine Barrell and Alex Hook.
The second-chance romance movie will air on Hallmark Channel, Dec. 11 at 5 p.m. Find a full Hallmark lineup, here.
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