Hallmark is back in the holiday spirit this season, and there's plenty of festivity still to come before the end of the 2023 TV schedule. A World Record Christmas brought Nikki DeLoach and Lucas Bryant back for their latest television movie as part of Hallmark Movies & Mysteries' Miracles of Christmas programming event. It was a heartwarming story of a family coming together to try and set a Guinness World Record, and they had a happy ending together even if they didn't manage to make history. When Nikki DeLoach spoke with CinemaBlend about A World Record Christmas celebrating neurodiversity, she also revealed that the project originally had a very different ending, and she prefers to finished version.
In A World Record Christmas, a young autistic boy named Charlie (Aias Dalman) sets his heart on breaking the record for the most Jenga blocks being stacked without falling in the hope of getting his absent father to come home for the holidays. His mom Marissa (Nikki DeLoach) and stepdad Eric (Lucas Bryant) pull out all the stops to help him. Charlie's dad ultimately doesn't show up in time to watch his son try to break the record, and he wasn't able to make Guinness World Record History. Charlie did manage to try again and set a personal record for himself, and in the process realized that stepdad Eric is really the dad he's needed all along.
Charlie not breaking the record was a major twist, especially considering that Hallmark movies generally end on a win for the main characters. When I spoke with the leading lady, she shared why she thinks Charlie setting a personal record instead was a good conclusion to the story:
Our executives did such a great job with this because in the beginning, he did break the record, and then they adjusted the ending and I was so happy that they did and here's why. We live in a world right right now, especially with social media, where there's such a need to be special, a need to matter. And kids are thinking that the way that they matter and the way that they are seen as being special is by winning, about having enough likes on social media, about breaking that record so people can look at them and say, 'Oh, you're so incredible.'
Setting a record was what originally mattered most to Charlie, as he and his family didn't come up with the Jenga plan until after he decided he wanted to make Guinness World Records history. Of course, he had the goal of making his biological dad proud rather than going viral on social media, but he learned a valuable lesson by the end. Nikki DeLoach, who is no stranger to movies that break the Hallmark mold, continued:
As a writer or even as an actor, I always talk about what does the actor want versus what does the actor need? And this character wanted to break a world record, so that his dad would see just how incredible he is. But what this character needed was to accomplish his goal and set his own personal record, so that he knew just how incredible he was. Even adults are looking for this external self worth and we're constantly trying to get it from outside people, whether it's from winning those awards or friends or adoration from the outside. What we all need to understand is that is an inside job.
I'm not sure if Charlie realizing that Eric is the one who really deserves to be called "Dad" would have packed as much of an emotional punch if it wasn't tied to trying to set a personal record, and I'm with DeLoach in liking the finished product better than the description of the original plan. She elaborated:
Self worth is an inside job. Confidence is an inside job. And so the beauty of this story that our executives and our writer ended up I feel like like really nailing in the ending is that it is an inside job for us to have confidence and self worth. And my son in the movie, he had to know it for himself. It didn't matter how many people, his mother and his father included, his friend… And so by the end of the movie, because he did his personal best, he felt how incredible he was and that is the work that we all have to do as humans.
Charlie had the help of his mom, his stepdad, and his best friend in achieving his personal best, but he couldn't have done it without realizing what really matters to him in life. The movie couldn't have had much of a happier ending, with the young boy setting his perfect record and getting his Christmas wish of a baby sibling after Marissa finally decided she was ready to expand their family with Eric. If you missed A World Record Christmas or just want to revisit the sweet family dynamic, check out the clip below:
The Christmas season isn't even close to being finished on Hallmark and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, so there will be a lot of merry-and-bright action in the coming weeks. Catch Me If You Claus will air on Thanksgiving night with Italia Ricci and Luke Macfarlane, while Star Trek's Jonathan Frakes opened up about A Biltmore Christmas airing just days later. For some viewing options in the new year, be sure to check out our 2024 TV schedule.
