The New Holiday Film Critique – Netflix’s Newest Christmas Romcom Falls Flat.

Without wanting to come across as a holiday cynic, one must bemoan the premature release of holiday films prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. While temperatures drop, it feels premature to completely immerse in the platform’s yearly buffet of cheap holiday treats.

Like US candy which don’t include real chocolate, Netflix’s holiday films are counted on for their brand of badness. They offer rote familiarity – nostalgic casting, low budgets, artificial winter scenes, and unbelievable plots. At worst, these movies are unmemorable disasters; at best, they are forgettable fun.

Champagne Problems, the newest Christmas concoction, disappears into the vast middle of unremarkable territory. Directed by the filmmaker, who previously previous romantic comedy was utterly forgettable, this movie goes down like cheap bubbly – appropriately flat and context-dependent.

The story starts with what looks like an AI-generated ad for drug store brand champagne. This ad is actually the pitch of the main character, portrayed by the actress, to her coworkers at the Roth Group. The protagonist is the stereotypical image of a professional female – underestimated, phone-obsessed, and driven to the harm of her personal life. When her superior sends her to Paris to close a deal over Christmas, her sister insists she take one night in the city to enjoy life.

Naturally, the French capital is the ideal location to pull someone from Google Maps, despite the city is draped with below-grade CGI snow. In an absurdly cutesy bookshop, the lead has a charming encounter with Henri Cassell, who distracts her from her phone. As demanded by rom-com conventions, she initially resists this ideal guy for silly reasons.

Equally as expected are the movie mechanics that proceed at abrupt quarter turns, mirroring the turning of old sparkling wine in the vaults of the family vineyard. The twist? The love interest is the heir to the estate, reluctant to run it and resentful toward his dad for putting it up for sale. In perhaps the movie’s most salient contribution to the genre, he is extremely judgmental of private equity. The conflict? Sydney sincerely believes she’s not dismantling the ancestral business for parts, competing against three caricatures: a severe French grand dame, a severe blonde German man, and an out-of-touch wealthy man.

The development? Her skeevy coworker Ryan shows up without warning. The grist? The two leads look yearningly at one another in holiday pajamas, across a huge divide in economic worldview.

The gift and the curse is that nothing here sticks longer than a short-lived thrill on an unfilled belly. There’s a lack of real absorbent filler – Minka Kelly, still best known for her part in the TV series, delivers a merely adequate performance, superficially pleasant and acts of kindness, more maternal than romantic lead. Tom Wozniczka offers exactly the dollop of Gallic appeal with mild self-torture and little else. The gimmicks are unfunny, the love story is inoffensive, and the ending is straightforward.

Despite its waxing poetic on the luxury of sparkling wine, nobody claims this is anything but a mass market item. The flaws are the very reasons some enjoy it. One might call a critic’s feelings about it a champagne problem.

• Champagne Problems can be streamed on the platform.