Without wanting to sound like a holiday cynic, it’s hard not to bemoan the early release of holiday films before Thanksgiving. While temperatures drop, it feels too soon to fully indulge in Netflix’s yearly feast of cheap holiday treats.
Like American chocolates which don’t include real chocolate, the service’s Christmas movies are relied upon for their style of mediocrity. They offer rote familiarity – familiar actors, modest spending, fake snow, and unbelievable plots. In the worst cases, these films are forgettable train wrecks; at best, they are lighthearted distractions.
Champagne Problems, the newest holiday concoction, blends into the vast middle of unremarkable territory. Helmed by Mark Steven Johnson, who previously previous romantic comedy was so disposable, this movie feels like low-quality champagne – appropriately flat and situational.
It begins with what looks like an AI-generated ad for supermarket sparkling wine. This ad is actually the proposal of Sydney Price, played by Minka Kelly, to her coworkers at the Roth Group. Sydney is the construction paper cut-out of a professional female – overlooked, constantly on her device, and driven to the harm of her personal life. After her superior sends her to France to close a deal over Christmas, her sibling insists she take one night in the city to live for herself.
Naturally, the French capital is the perfect place to wrest one away from Google Maps, even when Paris is draped with unconvincing digital snowfall. In an absurdly cutesy bookstore, the lead has a charming encounter with the male lead, and he pulls her away from her device. Following rom-com conventions, she at first rejects this ideal guy for silly reasons.
Just as predictable are the film elements that unfold at sudden shifts, mirroring the turning of aging champagne bottles in the vaults of Chateau Cassel. The twist? Henri is the heir to the estate, hesitant to run it and resentful toward his dad for selling it. Maybe the movie’s most salient contribution to romantic comedies, he is extremely judgmental of private equity. The problem? Sydney sincerely believes she’s not dismantling the ancestral business for profit, vying against three caricatures: a stern Frenchwoman, a rigid German, and an out-of-touch wealthy man.
The development? Her skeevy coworker the office rival appears without warning. The core? The two leads gaze longingly at each other in festive sleepwear, across a vast chasm in financial perspective.
The upside and downside is that nothing here sticks beyond a short-lived thrill on an unfilled belly. There is no real absorbent filler – the lead actress, still best known for her role in the TV series, gives a merely adequate portrayal, superficially pleasant and acts of kindness, almost motherly than love interest material. Tom Wozniczka provides just the right amount of Gallic appeal with light inner conflict and nothing more. The gimmicks are not amusing, the love story is inoffensive, and the happy-ever-after is predictable.
Despite its waxing poetic on the luxury of sparkling wine, no one is pretending it is anything but a mass market item. The flaws are also the things to like. One might call an expert’s opinion about it a minor issue.
- Champagne Problems is now available on Netflix.
