Champagne Problems Critique – The Streaming Giant’s Newest Holiday Romcom Lacks Fizz.
Without wanting to come across as a holiday cynic, it’s hard not to lament the premature release of holiday films before Thanksgiving. While temperatures drop, it seems premature to fully indulge in the platform’s annual buffet of cheap festive entertainment.
Like American chocolates which don’t contain genuine cocoa, the service’s Christmas movies are counted on for their brand of mediocrity. They offer rote familiarity – nostalgic casting, modest spending, fake snow, and unbelievable plots. At worst, these movies are forgettable train wrecks; in the best scenarios, they are forgettable fun.
The new Netflix film, the newest holiday offering, blends into the broad center of unremarkable territory. Helmed by the filmmaker, who previously last Netflix romcom was utterly forgettable, this film goes down like cheap bubbly – fittingly lackluster and situational.
It begins with what looks like an AI-generated ad for drug store brand champagne. This commercial is actually the pitch of the main character, portrayed by the actress, to her coworkers at a financial firm. Sydney is the construction paper cut-out of a professional female – overlooked, phone-obsessed, and ambitious to the detriment of her private world. When her superior dispatches her to France to finalize an acquisition over the holidays, her sister insists she take one night in Paris to enjoy life.
Naturally, the French capital is the ideal location to pull someone from Google Maps, even when Paris is covered in below-grade CGI snow. At a absurdly cutesy bookstore, Sydney meet-cutes with Henri Cassell, who distracts her from her phone. As demanded by the genre, she at first rejects this perfect man for frivolous excuses.
Equally as expected are the film elements that proceed at sudden shifts, reflecting the rotation of old sparkling wine in the cellars of Chateau Cassel. The twist? Henri is the heir to Chateau Cassel, reluctant to manage it and resentful toward his dad for selling it. Maybe the movie’s most salient contribution to romantic comedies, he is extremely judgmental of private equity. The problem? Sydney sincerely believes she’s not dismantling the ancestral business for profit, competing against three caricatures: a stern Frenchwoman, a severe blonde German man, and an out-of-touch wealthy man.
The development? Her shady colleague Ryan appears without warning. The core? Henri and Sydney look yearningly at each other in holiday pajamas, despite a vast chasm in economic worldview.
The gift and the curse is that nothing here sticks longer than a bubbly buzz on an empty stomach. There is no real absorbent filler – Minka Kelly, most famous for her part in Friday Night Lights, gives a strictly serviceable portrayal, superficially pleasant and acts of kindness, more maternal than love interest material. Tom Wozniczka offers just the right amount of Gallic appeal with light inner conflict 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, nobody claims this is anything but a mass market item. The flaws are also the things to like. One might call an expert’s opinion about the film a minor issue.
- The Holiday Film is now available on the platform.