"It's time for a new generation to step up to the mantle."
Hello everyone!
That's right, the weather outside being what it is - that is, rainy and foggy and all things mysterious - has prompted me to return to my love of mysteries, because there's just something about the kind of atmosphere it produces which always leads me to either read or watch detectives muddle their way through clues.
This one's no different.
Actually, I think Hallmark's trying it's hand at several different, new projects right now, with rights to different book series, to see what sticks to the wall and what doesn't.
Because Gilded Newport Mysteries was a book series FIRST before they translated it onto the screen, and I'm now absolutely curious about the series as a whole, having seen this first installment.
I'm a fan of HBO's Gilded Age, after all. Gilded Newport Mysteries: Murder at the Breakers sounded right up my alley.
As this is the first in what feels to be an upcoming series of movies, there won't be any links down at the bottom of the page, but keep an eye out! I'll probably be covering the sequels if they ever arrive, in which case, links will happen.
Onwards!
Emma Vanderbilt-Cross (Ali Skovbye) is a journalist who writes for the women's pages, but she's also cousin to the fabulously wealthy (and powerful) Vanderbilt family, which often opens doors other journalists might never have been able to even nudge.
However, she wants to write serious things, and she keeps butting heads with her aunt and uncle over her half-brother, whom they dislike to a rather massive degree. Defiant, she takes Brady along to their cousin Gertrude's debutante ball, but things ... don't go according to plan.
As in, one of her uncle's associates drops to the stones from a height, breaking his neck in the fall, but turns out he was walloped over the head BEFORE that, and Emma almost literally witnesses his death (not that this seems to affect her much ... they try to write it off as her being terribly level-headed, but come on, a little shock would have been nice!).
Acting quickly, Emma's relieved when a friend of hers, Jesse, is the detective on call, and upon entering her uncle's study they find a knocked-out Brady.
This leads to his arrest, regardless that it makes zero sense why he'd be knocked out, too, and especially since Emma later finds that he was walloped as well.
Her uncle has an axe to grind though, because, being a railroad baron, he had some pretty important papers stolen, and is now accusing Brady of both murder AND theft - and yet no papers are found on Brady, so why they can even hold him is a mystery (actually, no it isn't, that time was fraught with loopholes and the uncle is rich enough to warrant it just on hearsay alone).
Emma, however, is undaunted, and decides that, if no one else will fight for her brother's freedom, then SHE will, so with Jesse's help - off the books, of course - they start looking into other potential suspects.
Turns out there's a few of those.
A disgruntled fired employee, a rival baron, Emma's cousin even, because everyone and their mother is trying to split him and the love of his life (who just so happens to be the daughter of another rival baron, natch) ... see where this is going?
Even a Derrick Anderson pops up on their list when he tries to instigate a conversation with Emma and ask her some questions which she immediately misunderstands and kicks him to the curb.
Listen, I never claimed our heroine has all her ducks lined up in a neat row, she jumps to conclusions WAY too quickly.
Anyway, the more she and Jesse investigate though, the more trouble she seems to find herself in, because one, she gets her purse (and her notes) stolen, she gets fired from the paper because her boss explicitly told her to stay away from the scandal (which he covers, rather giddily, I might add), and finally she gets run off the road in her gig when someone else drives theirs right into her.
All this points to the fact that she and Jesse are on the right track, however, following clues the police either missed or didn't bother with since they have Brady, which is an impression of a gilded-headed polo mallet that initially points to her cousin, but turns out it could also have been a walking cane.
Which, conveniently, that rival baron has to use because he's old as dirt, and happens to be married to Emma's best friend.
When the baron turns up dead too, though? Things get complicated.
Emma pieces the clues together and realizes it's the FRIEND who's been at it all along, and she doesn't relent even held at gunpoint, because not only is her friend asking her to lie for her (the papers will be returned anyway, regardless that she was trying to sell them over the phone earlier) BUT she was willing to let Brady take the fall for her crime, something Emma will never forgive because she adores her brother to pieces.
Small note here: it's just her and Brady, because their parents are gallivanting around Europe being artists, or something. Not respectable, in any event.
So anyway, Jesse comes to the rescue before Emma can get shot, the papers are returned to their rightful owner, and Brady's freed.
Jesse then attempts, for what feels like the tenth time, to speak his feelings to Emma (who, rather brazenly, kisses him during this movie and muddles the waters further for herself since she's already made it clear she isn't quite ready for marriage yet), when Derrick interrupts the party to come say goodbye.
Turns out, he's actually a railroad baron's heir himself, but he was in Newport investigating what's been going on with the old baron who kicked the bucket, because his family was convinced that his young wife was poisoning him.
And oh, yes, she was, at that. Supremely unhappy in her marriage, she wanted out any way she could get it, so this was the end result of it all.
Derrick, who's been nothing but charming all through the movie, steals Emma's breath one last time before taking off, but not before promising to see her again very soon - which, of course, indicates a sequel!
As for Emma, she returns to the celebration, but the movie ends with her writing in her journal that maybe, independence isn't what makes people happy - but that happiness comes from what you do with said independence.
And in the words of one Anakin Skywalker: this is where the fun begins.
Light, charming, although a little wooden on the acting occasionally (particularly the lead actress who plays Emma, because she has almost no reactions to most of the scenes she's in, unfortunately), Murder at the Breakers is a decent first entry into what I'm sure Hallmark hopes will become a franchize. I think it's got lots of potential, too, although I'm not too keen on the love triangle they're bound to develop.
Hopefully it isn't as ridiculous as in Murder, She Baked though, taking into account the era during which these stories are set, and realizing it won't work because the scandal would be too much.
Overall, however, I'd say this is a good watch on a rainy afternoon or evening, with nothing too gory or too distasteful to handle. The clues are easy enough to follow, and even though there's plenty of red herrings (happily pointed out to us by the nanny), the real culprit isn't too far off either.
So I definitely suggest giving this a go - you might even like it!
xx
*images and video not mine
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