Champagne Problems Critique – The Streaming Giant’s Newest Holiday Romantic Comedy Lacks Fizz.

Without wanting to sound like a holiday cynic, one must bemoan the early arrival of Christmas films before Thanksgiving. While temperatures drop, it feels premature to fully indulge in Netflix’s yearly buffet of cheap festive entertainment.

Like US candy which don’t contain real chocolate, Netflix’s Christmas films are relied upon for their brand of mediocrity. They provide rote familiarity – familiar actors, low budgets, artificial winter scenes, and absurd premises. In the worst cases, these movies are forgettable train wrecks; in the best scenarios, they are forgettable fun.

Champagne Problems, the newest Christmas concoction, disappears into the broad center of the forgettable spectrum. Helmed by the filmmaker, whose last Netflix romcom was so disposable, this film goes down like cheap bubbly – fittingly lackluster and situational.

It begins with what appears to be a computer-made commercial for drug store brand champagne. This ad is actually the pitch of Sydney Price, portrayed by Minka Kelly, to her coworkers at a financial firm. The protagonist is the stereotypical image of a professional female – overlooked, constantly on her device, and ambitious to the detriment of her personal life. When her superior sends her to Paris to finalize an acquisition over Christmas, her sibling insists she take one night in the city to enjoy life.

Naturally, the French capital is the perfect place to pull someone from Google Maps, despite Paris is covered in unconvincing digital snowfall. At a absurdly cutesy bookshop, Sydney has a charming encounter with the male lead, and he pulls her away from her phone. As demanded by rom-com conventions, she initially resists this perfect man for silly reasons.

Equally as expected are the movie mechanics that proceed at abrupt quarter turns, mirroring the rotation of aging champagne bottles in the vaults of Chateau Cassel. The catch? Henri is the successor to the estate, hesitant to manage it and resentful toward his father for putting it up for sale. Maybe the movie’s most salient contribution to romantic comedies, he is extremely judgmental of corporate buyouts. The conflict? The heroine sincerely believes she’s not stripping this family-owned company for profit, competing against three stereotypical rivals: a stern Frenchwoman, a rigid German, and an out-of-touch wealthy man.

The development? Her shady colleague Ryan appears unannounced. The core? Henri and Sydney gaze longingly at one another in holiday pajamas, across a huge divide in economic worldview.

The upside and downside is that none of this lingers longer than a bubbly buzz on an empty stomach. There’s a lack of real absorbent filler – Minka Kelly, most famous for her part in Friday Night Lights, delivers a strictly serviceable performance, all sweet surfaces and acts of kindness, more maternal than love interest material. Tom Wozniczka offers just the right amount of French charm with mild self-torture and little else. The tricks are not amusing, the love story is inoffensive, and the happy-ever-after is predictable.

Despite its waxing poetic on the luxury of sparkling wine, no one is pretending this is anything other than a mainstream product. The flaws are the very reasons some enjoy it. One might call an expert’s opinion about it a champagne problem.

• Champagne Problems is now available on Netflix.