2008 - Hallmark put a little extra money into a made-for-TV film and decided to adapt a Louisa May Alcott short story. By adapt I mean they took the title and the fact that it was about Thanksgiving and then added a bunch of elements stolen from other Alcott books. The original tale was a just a description of a middle class family attempting to celebrate on a budget. At the time the story was written, Thanksgiving had only been a national holiday for about 20 years, but as a New England-er, Alcott would’ve been an old hand at the festivities. I should also point out that this has small historical inaccuracies that I decided to nit-pick, but I won’t expose you to my pretentious irks.
A quick synopsis of this Little Women/Jack and Jill/Eight Cousins rip off. Tilly (Tatiana Maslany - yes, Orphan Black herself starred in this as a teenager and stands out) is the eldest ins a lower-middle class New England family. Her father has died within the last year and her mother (Helene Joy) has been making ends meet as a midwife and unofficial town healer. Tilly worries about her two younger siblings and thinks it’s her job to save the family from poverty. When her wealthy best friend/love interest Gideon “Gad” (Kristopher Turner as a Theodore Laurence/Jack Minot substitute) runs into her estranged grandmother while in Europe, she begs him to delivery a letter she forges from her mother. You know the letter - all about starvation, a father kidnapped by gypsies, and a beg for help.
At first, Gad reports how her Grandmother (Jacqueline Bisset) threw out the letter, but then the snobbish woman shows up at their farm. Tilly discovers that she is both drawn to the life her grandmother can offer, but is also appalled by how this well-bred woman constantly berates her late father as an Irish vagrant who stole Tilly’s mother from her fancy life. Tilly does stand up to her Grandmother and the two find common ground yet Tilly still has to school her grandmother in how to be a kind human. Grandmother is also a subtle advocate of women’s rights, secretly admiring her own daughter for being a survivor.
Tilly, like the famous Jo of Little Women, is an aspiring writer. She records every part of her grandmother’s visit and turns it in a novella. Unlike in Little Women, Gad is supportive of this and encourages her by bringing her a bust of Lord Byron from Europe. He finds no strangeness in the way she speaks to the statue and asks for writing writing advise. A strange choice for a young woman in the mid-1800s - I mean, Bryon really? Hardly appropriate. He was such a dick to everyone he claimed to love. Get better heroes, kid. Still, when Tilly wants her life to change for the better, it’s Byron she begs for help from, declaring she’ll give up “comfort” for a dedication of truth and beauty through writing if he will help save her family. Give up comfort? Truth? Beauty? Yep. She has no idea what sort of man Lord Byron was. Of course, when I was a kids I was heart broken to find out that Charles Dickens left his wife in such a jerk way and I still kinda idolize him. We all need better heroes.
Despite having a day job, Tilly stays up late writing short stories and had difficulty getting up in the morning. That sound pretty much like me age 13 to 21. She’s horrified when her grandmother reads some of her work without her permission, but the uptight matriarch gives her constructive criticism and declares that she should travel to help her writing. I did like this part of the story especially because (SPOILER ALERT) that’s what she chooses to do at the end of the film, giving Gad a promise she’ll rethink he marriage proposal when she comes back. That’s right - this Hallmark movies ends with the boy not getting the girl. Instead, the girl gets a trip to Europe in order to improve her writing. Let’s end more Hallmark movies like this!
