Champagne Problems Review – The Streaming Giant’s Newest Christmas Romcom Falls Flat.

At the risk of come across as a holiday cynic, one must lament the premature arrival of holiday movies prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. Even as the weather cools, it seems too soon to fully indulge in Netflix’s annual buffet of low-cost holiday treats.

Like American chocolates which don’t contain real chocolate, the service’s holiday movies are counted on for their brand of mediocrity. They provide rote familiarity – familiar actors, low budgets, artificial winter scenes, and unbelievable plots. At worst, these films are forgettable train wrecks; at best, they are forgettable fun.

The new Netflix film, the newest Christmas concoction, disappears into the broad center of the forgettable spectrum. Directed by the filmmaker, whose previous romantic comedy was utterly forgettable, this movie goes down like low-quality champagne – appropriately flat and context-dependent.

The story starts with what appears to be a computer-made commercial for supermarket sparkling wine. This ad is actually the proposal of the main character, played by Minka Kelly, to her colleagues at the Roth Group. Sydney is the stereotypical image of a professional female – overlooked, constantly on her device, and driven to the harm of her private world. After her boss sends her to Paris to finalize an acquisition over the holidays, her sibling insists she spend an evening in the city to live for herself.

Of course, the French capital is the perfect place to wrest one away from Google Maps, despite Paris is covered in unconvincing digital snowfall. In an absurdly cutesy bookshop, Sydney meet-cutes with the male lead, and he distracts her from her device. Following rom-com conventions, Sydney initially resists this perfect man for silly reasons.

Just as predictable are the movie mechanics that proceed at sudden shifts, mirroring the rotation of aging champagne bottles in the cellars of the family vineyard. The twist? The love interest is the heir to the estate, hesitant to manage it and resentful toward his father for putting it up for sale. In perhaps the film’s biggest addition to the genre, he is highly critical of corporate buyouts. The problem? Sydney truly thinks she’s not stripping the ancestral business for parts, competing against three caricatures: a severe French grand dame, a rigid German, and an out-of-touch wealthy man.

The development? Sydney’s shady colleague Ryan appears unannounced. The core? Henri and Sydney gaze longingly at each other in holiday pajamas, despite a vast chasm in financial perspective.

The upside and downside is that none of this lingers beyond a short-lived thrill on an empty stomach. There’s a lack of real absorbent filler – the lead actress, most famous for her part in Friday Night Lights, delivers a strictly serviceable performance, superficially pleasant and gestures of care, almost motherly than love interest material. The male star provides exactly the dollop of French charm with mild self-torture and little else. The tricks are not amusing, the love story is inoffensive, and the ending is straightforward.

Despite its waxing poetic on the exclusivity of sparkling wine, no one is pretending it is anything but a mainstream product. The things to hate are the very reasons some enjoy it. It’s fair to say a critic’s feelings about the film a champagne problem.

• The Holiday Film can be streamed on the platform.