The New Holiday Film Review – The Streaming Giant’s Newest Holiday Romcom Misses the Sparkle.

Without wanting to come across as the Grinch, one must lament the premature arrival of holiday movies before Thanksgiving. Even as temperatures drop, it feels premature to fully indulge in the platform’s yearly feast of cheap holiday entertainment.

Similar to US candy that no longer include real chocolate, Netflix’s holiday movies are counted on for their brand of badness. They offer rote familiarity – familiar actors, low budgets, artificial winter scenes, and absurd premises. At worst, these movies are forgettable train wrecks; in the best scenarios, they are forgettable fun.

The new Netflix film, the newest holiday concoction, blends into the vast middle of unremarkable territory. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson, who previously last Netflix romcom was utterly forgettable, this movie goes down like cheap bubbly – fittingly lackluster and situational.

It begins with what looks like a computer-made commercial for drug store brand champagne. This ad is actually the proposal of Sydney Price, portrayed by the actress, to her coworkers at a financial firm. Sydney is the stereotypical image of a career woman – overlooked, constantly on her device, and driven to the detriment of her private world. When her superior dispatches her to France to finalize an acquisition over Christmas, her sibling makes her promise take one night in the city to live for herself.

Naturally, the French capital is the ideal location to wrest one away from Google Maps, even when Paris is draped with below-grade CGI snow. At a overly quaint bookshop, the lead meet-cutes with the male lead, and he pulls her away from her phone. Following rom-com conventions, she initially resists this perfect man for frivolous excuses.

Equally as expected are the film elements that unfold at abrupt quarter turns, mirroring the rotation of aging champagne bottles in the vaults of the family vineyard. The twist? The love interest is the successor to the estate, hesitant to manage it and bitter toward his father for selling it. In perhaps the film’s biggest addition to the genre, he is extremely judgmental of corporate buyouts. The conflict? The heroine truly thinks she’s not dismantling this family-owned company for parts, vying against three caricatures: a stern Frenchwoman, a severe blonde German man, and a delusional gay billionaire.

The development? Her skeevy coworker Ryan shows up without warning. The grist? The two leads gaze longingly at one another in festive sleepwear, despite a huge divide in economic worldview.

The gift and the curse is that none of this lingers beyond a short-lived thrill on an unfilled belly. There is no real absorbent filler – the lead actress, still best known for her part in Friday Night Lights, gives a merely adequate portrayal, all sweet surfaces and gestures of care, more maternal than romantic lead. The male star provides just the right amount of French charm with mild self-torture and little else. The gimmicks are unfunny, the romance is inoffensive, and the ending is predictable.

For all its philosophizing on the exclusivity of sparkling wine, nobody claims this is anything other than a mass market item. The flaws are also the things to like. One might call an expert’s opinion about the film a champagne problem.

• Champagne Problems is now available on Netflix.