Champagne Problems Critique – Netflix’s Newest Holiday Romantic Comedy Lacks Fizz.

At the risk of sound like a holiday cynic, it’s hard not to lament the premature arrival of holiday movies before Thanksgiving. Even as the weather cools, it feels premature to fully indulge in the platform’s yearly feast of cheap festive treats.

Like US candy which don’t contain real chocolate, the service’s Christmas movies are counted on for their style of badness. They provide rote familiarity – familiar actors, modest spending, artificial winter scenes, and unbelievable plots. In the worst cases, these movies are unmemorable disasters; in the best scenarios, they are lighthearted distractions.

The new Netflix film, the latest holiday offering, disappears into the broad center of the forgettable spectrum. Helmed by the filmmaker, who previously previous romantic comedy was utterly forgettable, this film feels like cheap bubbly – fittingly lackluster and context-dependent.

It begins with what appears to be a computer-made commercial for drug store brand champagne. This ad is actually the proposal of the main character, portrayed by the actress, to her coworkers at the Roth Group. Sydney is the construction paper cut-out of a professional female – underestimated, phone-obsessed, and ambitious to the harm of her personal life. After her boss dispatches her to France to close a deal over Christmas, her sibling insists she take one night in Paris to enjoy life.

Naturally, Paris is the ideal location to pull someone from digital navigation, even when the city is covered in below-grade CGI snow. At a overly quaint bookshop, the lead has a charming encounter with the male lead, and he distracts her from her phone. Following the genre, Sydney initially resists this ideal guy for frivolous excuses.

Equally as expected are the movie mechanics that proceed at abrupt quarter turns, mirroring the turning of aging champagne bottles in the cellars of Chateau Cassel. The catch? The love interest is the successor to Chateau Cassel, reluctant to manage it and bitter toward his father for selling it. In perhaps the movie’s biggest addition to romantic comedies, Henri is extremely judgmental of corporate buyouts. The conflict? The heroine truly thinks she’s not dismantling this family-owned company for profit, vying against three stereotypical rivals: a stern Frenchwoman, a rigid German, and an out-of-touch wealthy man.

The development? Her shady colleague Ryan shows up without warning. The grist? The two leads gaze longingly at one another in holiday pajamas, despite a huge divide in economic worldview.

The upside and downside is that nothing here lingers longer than a short-lived thrill on an empty stomach. There’s a lack of substantial content – the lead actress, most famous for her part in the TV series, gives a merely adequate performance, superficially pleasant and acts of kindness, more maternal than love interest material. Tom Wozniczka provides exactly the dollop of Gallic appeal with light inner conflict and little else. The tricks are unfunny, the love story is harmless, and the ending is predictable.

For all its philosophizing on the exclusivity of sparkling wine, nobody claims it is anything but a mainstream product. The flaws are also the things to like. It’s fair to say an expert’s opinion about the film a minor issue.

• Champagne Problems is now available on the platform.