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

At the risk of come across as a holiday cynic, it’s hard not to lament the premature arrival of holiday movies before Thanksgiving. Even as temperatures drop, it seems premature to fully indulge in the platform’s yearly feast of cheap festive treats.

Like US candy that no longer contain genuine cocoa, the service’s Christmas films are counted on for their brand of mediocrity. They provide predictable elements – nostalgic casting, modest spending, artificial winter scenes, and absurd premises. In the worst cases, these movies are unmemorable disasters; at best, they are forgettable fun.

The new Netflix film, the newest Christmas concoction, disappears into the vast middle of unremarkable territory. Directed by the filmmaker, whose last Netflix romcom was utterly forgettable, this movie feels like cheap bubbly – fittingly lackluster and context-dependent.

The story starts with what appears to be a computer-made commercial for supermarket sparkling wine. This commercial is actually the proposal of Sydney Price, portrayed by Minka Kelly, to her coworkers at a financial firm. The protagonist is the construction paper cut-out of a career woman – underestimated, phone-obsessed, and driven to the detriment of her personal life. When her superior dispatches her to Paris to finalize an acquisition over Christmas, her sibling insists she take one night in Paris to live for herself.

Naturally, the French capital is the ideal location to wrest one away from Google Maps, even when Paris is covered in unconvincing digital snowfall. In an overly quaint bookstore, the lead meet-cutes with Henri Cassell, who pulls her away from her phone. Following rom-com conventions, she initially resists this ideal guy for silly reasons.

Equally as expected are the film elements that proceed at abrupt quarter turns, reflecting the rotation of old sparkling wine in the vaults of Chateau Cassel. The twist? The love interest is the successor to Chateau Cassel, hesitant to run it and bitter toward his dad for putting it up for sale. Maybe the film’s most salient contribution to the genre, he is highly critical of corporate buyouts. The problem? The heroine truly thinks she’s not stripping this family-owned company for parts, competing against three caricatures: a severe French grand dame, a rigid German, and an out-of-touch wealthy man.

The twist? Her shady colleague the office rival shows up without warning. The core? The two leads gaze longingly at one another in holiday pajamas, across a huge divide in economic worldview.

The gift and the curse is that none of this lingers longer than a short-lived thrill on an empty stomach. There is no real absorbent filler – Minka Kelly, most famous for her part in Friday Night Lights, delivers a strictly serviceable portrayal, all sweet surfaces and gestures of care, more maternal than love interest material. Tom Wozniczka provides just the right amount of French charm with mild self-torture and nothing more. The tricks are not amusing, the romance is harmless, and the ending is predictable.

Despite its waxing poetic on the exclusivity of champagne, no one is pretending it is anything but a mainstream product. The things to hate are also the things to like. One might call a critic’s feelings about it a champagne problem.

• Champagne Problems is now available on Netflix.