It follows Lucy as she's hired to write the script for a remake of a holiday movie. She joins a tour of the grounds and when she knocks an hourglass over, she finds herself transported back in time to 1946.
Lucy Hargrove (Bethany Joy Lenz) is a screenwriter who lands the job of a lifetime when she's hired to pen the script for a remake of the beloved holiday movie, "His Merry Wife!". First filmed in 1946 at beautiful, historic Biltmore House, it has long been considered a Christmas classic. When the head of the studio isn't satisfied with the ending Lucy wrote because it deviates from the original's feel-good conclusion, he sends Lucy to Biltmore Estate for research and inspiration. While there, she unwittingly discovers the ability to travel to the 1947 set of "His Merry Wife!" through an hourglass. After shaking off the initial shock of this turn of events, Lucy embraces this as her chance to uncover the truth about the movie's original ending. While on set, she and Jack Huston (Kristoffer Polaha), one of the film's stars, spend time together and become close. But her sudden appearance has set off a chain of events that put the production in jeopardy. Before she can return to the present, Lucy must make things right or the future might be altered forever.
Her career has been stalled for several years, so screenwriter Lucy Hargrove must make good on her latest plum assignment: to write the screenplay for the planned remake of 1940s holiday classic "His Merry Wife!", the surprise success of which revived the career of leading lady Ava Hayward and made a star out of then-relatively-unknown Jack Huston, who did not get a chance to enjoy that stardom, dying unexpected on Christmas Eve a year after filming wrapped. Lucy decides to change the original movie's happy ending to an uncertain one, arguing that it is more modern and realistic; her otherwise-supportive sister Becca believes that singleton Lucy has a cynical view of love. This change also does not sit well with studio head Michael Balaban, the grandson of studio founder Harold Balaban, who greenlit the original production while all the other major studios passed on it. Hopefully to provide some inspiration as to his view, Balaban, for the holidays, sends Lucy to the original movie's iconic setting, the Biltmore Estate, the inn at which which is done up for the holidays largely to capitalize on the movie's success. Lucy discovers that many fans do spend the holidays there, this year including super-fan Margaret Majors. But in being given special access by the manager Winston to some of the estate's otherwise restricted areas associated to the movie, Lucy discovers, much to her incredulity, that she has the ability to travel back in time to the actual filming in December 1947, all tied to one of the movie's key props, an hourglass, each of her visits to 1947 only until the sand runs out. While her first visits to 1947 were before she knew how to control it, her latest visit is of her own doing in discovering some information about the original movie which could influence her screenplay. In the process, she sees some of the discord with the production, and gets to know the real people behind the movie, including writer/director William West, the leading man Claude Lancaster, and both Hayward and especially Huston, with who she makes a connection. But Lucy hits an uncertain future when she could alter the course of the players, thus the outcome of the original movie, and something happens that threatens her ability to make it back to the present.—Huggo
