CHICAGO — Like clockwork every December, Americans dive into a whole slew of traditions — some of them (let’s be honest) of dubious quality. Ugly sweaters hurt the eyes; Mariah Carey wearies the ears; egg nog hardens the arteries. Still, we love them in spite of their various shortcomings — or maybe because of them.
So it goes with a thoroughly predictable yet comforting subgenre of (TV) film: holiday romances. The schmaltzy Yuletide canon gets a new addition this year with an authentic Chicagoland twist, thanks to “Reporting for Christmas,” which premiered last month on Hulu.
Providing further evidence of the genre’s allure: Shortly after its early release, it landed at No. 10 in Hulu’s Top 15 list.
Filmed with a local cast and crew on location in Chicago, along with key locations in northwest collar counties of Lake and McHenry, “Reporting for Christmas” is truly a homegrown project. Its director, Jack C. Newell, is a Lakeview resident who also makes documentaries and created The Second City Film School at The Second City. Producers Chris Charles and John W. Bosher, who met as film students at Columbia College Chicago, founded Throughline Films and then Very Merry Entertainment, a venture dedicated to family-friendly holiday projects.
“We all want more Illinois productions,” Newell told Block Club. “Chicago gets used a lot as a location for stuff that comes in from L.A., mostly, and also New York. Essentially, that means the creative is not happening here.”
But in the case of “Reporting for Christmas,” Newell continued, “This production was written by, produced by, directed by and fundraised mostly through folks who live and work in Illinois. The entire crew is local, and most of the cast is local.”
Newell led a three-week shoot between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2022. “We got lucky with snow,” he recalled. “We had the chance to re-stage some scenes outside when it was snowing, which was really cool.”
“Reporting for Christmas” follows the journey of Mary Romero, a seasoned Chicago broadcast journalist who, as the story begins, wants to keep digging into stories about Deep Tunnel-related stormwater management and the “Transit Authority.” Instead, she gets assigned to cover the 40th anniversary of the Mistletoad, a plush Christmas frog made by an Iowa toy manufacturer.
No surprise to fans of the genre: The toy factory lies in the fictional small town of Brunswick (population: 1,000), where the welcome sign includes the kicker: “The Holiday Spirit All Year Round.” As Mary mutters, with sarcasm level on high: “Eat your heart out, Diane Sawyer.”
After arrival, Mary decides to interview not just the president of the family-run company but also his salt-and-pepper-haired adult son, Blake Johnson. Initially, Mary meets icy resistance, but Blake begins to soften over a chance dinner at the local pub, which — wouldn’t you know? — serves “THE best meatloaf west of the Mississippi.” Later, when she pops over unannounced to Blake’s house, he appears on his balcony clad in just a towel — snowy weather be damned! — because he’s fresh out of the shower.
In other words: While it’s not going to win any Emmys, the movie hits all the right genre notes. If Hallmark-style fictional Christmas flirtations are your cup of hot cocoa, well, actors Tamara Feldman as the feisty reporter and Matt Trudeau as the hunky toy-empire heir bring all their marshmallows to the yard.
From its opening moments, the movie showcases Chicagoland. It’s got beautiful wintry establishing shots of Lake Shore Drive and Millennium Park, and the interior scenes set in Mary’s Chicago digs were actually shot in a city home, with a familiar Chicago apartment layout. At one point Mary attends a dinner date which, according to the establishing shot, is at Italian Village Downtown.
But the true location stars are found in the collar counties that could sub in for small-town Iowa. Mary’s Iowa AirBnb is actually in Woodstock, in a house with local notoriety from its appearance in the legendary Bill Murray comedy “Groundhog Day.” The factory scenes were shot in Vernon Hills (the assembly-line credits are mesmerizing), and a majority of the rest of the movie was shot in picturesque Long Grove.
“The Christmas-movie genre thing, most of the time, involves a small-town situation,” Newell said. “Long Grove was perfect. It’s really magical, with the cool old downtown district — cobblestone streets, colorful houses. And it’s got a covered bridge, which Long Grove is really proud of; it’s a stunning feature.”
If you’ve ever seen a cable-ready Christmas movie, you know that there’s very little chance that Mary and Blake are going to wind up in a major metropolitan area. But it’s obvious that the filmmakers have an affection for Chicago as well with that impressive onsite footage, and the Midwestern small-town settings are spot-on.
And how does Newell feel about entering the holiday movie canon? The filmmaker admitted, “I celebrate Christmas, but I wouldn’t say I’m Christmas-movie fanboy. It doesn’t have to be about Christmas for me to watch it at Christmastime. I weirdly think of ‘Rogue One’ as a Christmas movie, because [my wife] Rebecca and I saw it on Christmas Day.”
When asked to pick his favorite holiday film, Newell answered without hesitation: “I’d pick ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol,’ every time.”
“Reporting for Christmas” is available for streaming on Hulu with a subscription, or for purchase on YouTube, GooglePlay and Vudu.
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