The New Holiday Film Review – The Streaming Giant’s Newest Holiday Romcom Lacks Fizz.
At the risk of come across as the Grinch, one must bemoan the early arrival of Christmas movies prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. Even as the weather cools, it seems too soon to completely immerse in the platform’s annual feast of cheap festive treats.
Like American chocolates that no longer contain genuine cocoa, Netflix’s holiday movies are relied upon for their brand of badness. They provide rote familiarity – familiar actors, low budgets, fake snow, and unbelievable plots. At worst, these films are forgettable train wrecks; at best, they are lighthearted distractions.
Champagne Problems, the latest Christmas offering, disappears into the broad center of unremarkable territory. Helmed by the filmmaker, whose previous romantic comedy was utterly forgettable, this movie feels like low-quality champagne – appropriately flat and situational.
It begins with what looks like a computer-made commercial for drug store brand champagne. This commercial is actually the pitch of Sydney Price, played by the actress, to her colleagues at a financial firm. The protagonist is the stereotypical image of a professional female – overlooked, phone-obsessed, and driven to the harm of her personal life. After her superior sends her to France to finalize an acquisition over the holidays, her sister makes her promise take one night in Paris to enjoy life.
Naturally, Paris is the perfect place to wrest one away from digital navigation, even when the city is covered in below-grade CGI snow. In an overly quaint bookshop, the lead has a charming encounter with the male lead, who distracts her from her device. As demanded by the genre, she at first rejects this ideal guy for frivolous excuses.
Just as predictable are the film elements that proceed at sudden shifts, reflecting the rotation of old sparkling wine in the cellars of Chateau Cassel. The catch? Henri is the successor to Chateau Cassel, hesitant to run it and resentful toward his father for putting it up for sale. In perhaps the film’s biggest addition to the genre, he is extremely judgmental of private equity. The problem? Sydney truly thinks she’s not dismantling the ancestral business for parts, competing against three stereotypical rivals: a stern Frenchwoman, a rigid German, and a delusional gay billionaire.
The twist? Sydney’s shady colleague the office rival appears without warning. The core? Henri and Sydney gaze longingly at one another in festive sleepwear, across a huge divide in economic worldview.
The upside and downside is that nothing here sticks beyond a bubbly buzz on an empty stomach. There is no substantial content – Minka Kelly, most famous for her role in Friday Night Lights, delivers a strictly serviceable portrayal, superficially pleasant and gestures of care, almost motherly than love interest material. The male star provides exactly the dollop of Gallic appeal with light inner conflict and little else. The gimmicks are unfunny, the romance is harmless, and the happy-ever-after is straightforward.
Despite its waxing poetic on the exclusivity of champagne, no one is pretending this is anything but a mass market item. The flaws are the very reasons some enjoy it. One might call a critic’s feelings about it a minor issue.
- Champagne Problems can be streamed on Netflix.
