The New Holiday Film Review – Netflix’s Latest Holiday Romantic Comedy Falls Flat.
At the risk of come across as the Grinch, it’s hard not to lament the premature arrival of holiday movies prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. While the weather cools, it seems premature to fully indulge in the platform’s annual feast of cheap festive entertainment.
Similar to US candy which don’t include genuine cocoa, the service’s Christmas films are counted on for their brand of mediocrity. They offer predictable elements – familiar actors, modest spending, artificial winter scenes, and unbelievable plots. In the worst cases, these movies are forgettable train wrecks; at best, they are forgettable fun.
Champagne Problems, the latest Christmas concoction, disappears into the broad center of unremarkable territory. Helmed by the filmmaker, whose previous romantic comedy was utterly forgettable, this movie goes down like low-quality champagne – fittingly lackluster and situational.
The story starts with what looks like a computer-made commercial for drug store brand champagne. This commercial is actually the pitch of Sydney Price, portrayed by the actress, to her colleagues at a financial firm. Sydney is the stereotypical image of a professional female – underestimated, phone-obsessed, and driven to the detriment of her private world. When her boss sends her to France to close a deal over Christmas, her sibling insists she take one night in Paris to live for herself.
Of course, Paris is the perfect place to pull someone from digital navigation, despite the city is covered in unconvincing digital snowfall. In an absurdly cutesy bookshop, the lead has a charming encounter with the male lead, who distracts her from her phone. Following rom-com conventions, Sydney initially resists this ideal guy for frivolous excuses.
Just as predictable are the movie mechanics that unfold at abrupt quarter turns, reflecting the rotation of old sparkling wine in the vaults of the family vineyard. The twist? The love interest is the successor to Chateau Cassel, reluctant to run it and resentful toward his dad for selling it. In perhaps the film’s most salient contribution to the genre, he is extremely judgmental of private equity. The conflict? The heroine sincerely believes she’s not stripping this family-owned company for parts, competing against three stereotypical rivals: a severe French grand dame, a rigid German, and a delusional gay billionaire.
The twist? Her skeevy coworker the office rival shows up without warning. The core? The two leads gaze longingly at each other in holiday pajamas, despite a vast chasm in economic worldview.
The upside and downside is that none of this lingers beyond a short-lived thrill on an unfilled belly. There’s a lack of real absorbent filler – the lead actress, still best known for her part in the TV series, delivers a merely adequate performance, superficially pleasant and acts of kindness, almost motherly than romantic lead. Tom Wozniczka offers exactly the dollop of French charm with mild self-torture and little else. The tricks are not amusing, the romance is inoffensive, and the happy-ever-after is predictable.
Despite its waxing poetic on the luxury of champagne, no one is pretending it is anything but a mainstream product. The flaws are the very reasons some enjoy it. It’s fair to say a critic’s feelings about the film a champagne problem.
- Champagne Problems is now available on the platform.
