Fresh Holiday Fare

Creating the right atmosphere and tone for a Christmas movie is like “walking a tightrope,” according to Michael Pressman, director of Sunday’s CBS “Hallmark Hall of Fame” holiday fantasy, “A Season for Miracles.”

“These magical Christmas movies really work when they are grounded in something with very real conflicting, dire circumstances,” he says, pointing out that in the 1946 Frank Capra classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” a despairing George Bailey is about to commit suicide until he’s stopped by an angel named Clarence.

“We really thought of Capra when we made this movie,” Pressman says.

Carla Gugino stars in the modern-day fable as a young woman, named Emilie, whose drug-addicted sister (Laura Dern) is in prison. When a social worker (Kathy Baker) is about to place Dern’s two troubled children (Mae Whitman and Evan Sabara) in foster care, Emilie runs away with her niece and nephew with the police in pursuit. But thanks to the help of an angel and the townspeople of a small burg named Bethlehem, Emilie and the two children get the old-fashioned Christmas they’ve always wished for.

David Conrad, Patty Duke, Faith Prince and Lynn Redgrave also star in the heartwarming tale based on the book of the same name by Marilyn Pappano, adapted for television by Maria Nation.

“It excites me when something is a little larger than life,” says Pressman (“To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday”).

Pressman shot the film on the back lot of Warner Bros. in Burbank. “I thought my backdrop should feel slightly unreal,” he says. “I didn’t want it to be in gritty reality. I wanted it to be a gingerbread kind of warm, generic town that has a charm to it that you see in one’s fantasies.”

The performances, he says, also needed to be slightly heightened. “But at the same time, it is all rooted in a real belief in the circumstances.”

Nation tried to create in “Season for Miracles” a different type of “Hallmark Hall of Fame” movie. “These people didn’t have this kind of Hallmark [card] family. A lot of us don’t have the mom and dad and sweet little brothers and sisters in the log cabin in the snow [at Christmas]. It was nice to make a movie about people who were relatively down and out and what happens to them.”

The original novel, Nation says, was sweeter and softer. “One of the strong notes that came from Hallmark was to keep an eye on what the effects of drug addiction are on families and children.”

She says it was difficult to juggle all the disparate themes and voices. “On one side it is sweet and on the other side it is dark and gritty and real and in the middle you have this big fat love story,” she says. “I also tried to keep in mind this was a holiday movie.”

Gugino, currently on “Chicago Hope,” was drawn to the project because it is a fairy tale that comes out of a difficult situation: “She [Emilie] ends up finding the magic, and fantasy guardian angels. All of those things are important for the holidays.”

The actress, who has appeared in such features as “Snake Eyes,” says it is also an antidote to the dark, end-of-the-millennium fare like “End of Days.”

“I love dark movies, but when I sat down to read this, I said I’d love to be involved in something the whole family can see. I used to love watching Christmas movies as a kid. There is something great about believing in magic and the fact that people get second chances.”

Emilie goes through major metamorphoses during the course of the movie. “I am sort of thrust into motherhood,” Gugino explains. “They are her sister’s children and she is having to take over, which isn’t necessarily something she wants to do. Then she falls in love with them and they with her. It’s the notion of reinventing one’s self.”

“Season for Miracles,” adds Pressman, is ultimately about returning to simpler times. “It’s about removing all of the complications and business of the big city,” he says. “Let’s not forget, we are making a movie that is going to celebrate the last Christmas of the millennium. And the message ... is let’s not forget our roots.”

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“Hallmark Hall of Fame: A Season for Miracles” can be seen Sunday at 9 p.m. on CBS. The network has rated it TV-G (suitable for all audiences.