The Christmas Wish (1998)
Returning to his home town after the death of the grandfather who raised him, slick and cynical Wall Street trader Will Martin feels decidedly out of place, and not at all in tune with the Christmas preparations being made by the local citizenry. But Will isn't really taking a sentimental journey at all: He's merely in town to modernize and streamline his family's real-estate company. While going through his grandfather's effects, Will and his grandmother come across the old man's diary--which reveals a lengthy relationship with a woman named Lillian.
rating 6/10 User rating 19 votes 52% ❄ Christmas Connection
The entire film takes place over Christmas in a snow-covered small town, with the holiday serving as the catalyst for the central mystery. The grandmother's home, the traditions surrounding it, and the emotional resolution are all inseparable from the Christmas setting. This is not a movie that happens to be set at Christmas; Christmas is the point.
Our Review
The Christmas Wish aired on CBS in November 1998, adapted from a novel by Richard Paul Evans, who had already made his name with The Christmas Box. That earlier book had sold over eight million copies after Evans self-published it out of his garage, so CBS knew what it was buying: quiet, emotionally earnest Christmas television, the kind that doesn't try to be clever. The Christmas Wish delivers exactly that.
Neil Patrick Harris plays Will Stoner, a young man who returns to his grandmother's house for Christmas following a family loss. Debbie Reynolds plays the grandmother, Ruth. The setup sounds like the back cover of a greeting card, but Reynolds makes it work. She was 66 at the time and had decades of screen presence to draw on. She doesn't oversell the warmth. She just is warm, which is considerably harder to fake.
What the Movie Is Actually About
Will discovers that his late mother, as a young woman, had made a Christmas wish involving a man named Ted. Who is Ted? Why did she never mention him? The mystery is low-stakes by thriller standards, but it's the right scale for a 90-minute TV movie. The film isn't interested in plot twists. It's interested in the idea that the people we love had entire lives before we knew them.
That's a genuinely underexplored subject in Christmas films, which tend to focus on the present tense: the reunion, the reconciliation, the snowball fight that signals everything is okay now. The Christmas Wish is more interested in looking backward. Will learns something about his mother that reframes his understanding of who she was. The holiday context gives that discovery emotional permission it might not otherwise have.
Naomi Watts in 1998
The supporting cast is where the film gets genuinely interesting for anyone tracking film history. Naomi Watts plays a small role, credited but not prominent. At the time, she had been working steadily in Australian television and smaller productions since the late 1980s, but David Lynch hadn't yet cast her in Mulholland Drive. That came in 2001. Her appearance in The Christmas Wish puts her squarely in the long corridor of "working actress taking solid TV work" that precedes most major careers.
Watching her now, knowing what followed, there's a temptation to read something into every frame she appears in. That's a trap. She's good in the role because she's always been a technically careful actress, but there's nothing here that screams undiscovered. The film isn't a hidden vault of early genius. It's a small part in a TV movie, which is what it was.
The Richard Paul Evans Connection
Evans published The Christmas Box in 1993 as a gift for his daughters, printed just twenty copies. A local bookstore started selling it. Word spread across Utah. He eventually sold the paperback rights to Simon and Schuster for over four million dollars, setting a record for a first novel at the time. CBS adapted it as a TV movie in 1995, three years before The Christmas Wish got the same treatment.
The novels share a DNA: small-town settings, family grief processed through Christmas, an older generation passing something essential to a younger one. Evans has described his work as being about love that outlasts death, which sounds like marketing copy until you read him and realize he means it straightforwardly. The TV adaptations carry that quality over with varying success. The Christmas Wish handles it better than most.
Does the Sentiment Land?
The standard objection to movies like this is that they're manipulative: they use death and Christmas and snowfall to extract emotion without earning it through character or story. The objection has merit as a general rule. Applied to The Christmas Wish, it's only partially correct.
The film earns about two-thirds of what it asks you to feel. Reynolds and Harris have a believable rapport. The mystery, such as it is, resolves in a way that feels true to the characters rather than convenient for the plot. What doesn't quite work is the pacing in the middle section, where the film treads water for roughly twenty minutes before the final act finds its footing. For a 90-minute production, that's a significant drag.
Director Ian Barry keeps everything visually functional rather than inspired. The snowy exteriors look good because snow looks good. The interiors have the slightly flat quality of 1990s TV production. None of this is a dealbreaker. You're not watching for cinematography.
Who It's For
This is a film for people who want a Christmas movie that doesn't ask much of them beyond genuine feeling. It's not ironic. It's not subversive. It believes in grandmothers and Christmas wishes and the quiet revelations that come from going through an old box of photographs. If that sounds like what you need on a December evening, The Christmas Wish will give you exactly that.
If you need more, it won't give you that either, and it won't pretend to try.
Fun Facts
Richard Paul Evans originally self-published The Christmas Box in 1993 with only 20 copies, printed as a gift for his two daughters. The book went on to sell over eight million copies and broke publishing records when Simon and Schuster paid more than four million dollars for the paperback rights.
Debbie Reynolds had been performing professionally for nearly 50 years by the time she filmed The Christmas Wish in 1998, having made her screen debut in 1950 with a small role in June Bride. She was 66 during production.
Naomi Watts had been working as a professional actress since 1986, appearing in Australian TV series and smaller films throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, but remained largely unknown to American audiences until David Lynch cast her in Mulholland Drive in 2001.
Neil Patrick Harris was 25 years old when he filmed The Christmas Wish, and had been a working actor since age 14 when he was cast in Clara's Heart (1988). He was best known at the time for his long-running role as Doogie Howser, M.D., which ended in 1993.
CBS produced both major Richard Paul Evans adaptations: The Christmas Box in 1995 and The Christmas Wish in 1998. The Christmas Box starred Richard Thomas and Maureen O'Hara.
Director Ian Barry is an Australian television director who has worked extensively on international TV productions. The Christmas Wish was a US-Australian co-production, which accounts for why an Australian director and an actress with Australian television credits (Watts) both ended up on a CBS Christmas movie.
The novel The Christmas Wish was Evans' second book in what became a long-running tradition of Christmas-themed novels. He has published a new Christmas book nearly every year since 1993, making him one of the most prolific writers specifically in the holiday fiction genre.
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