At the risk of sounding like the Grinch, I must lament once again the release of Christmas movies before Thanksgiving. The temperatures may finally be dropping, but we're still too close to the blues of the time change and too far from the holiday splurges to fully enjoy Netflix's now-traditional annual feast of cheap Christmas sweets. Nevertheless, its content machine keeps churning, offering treats as substantial and long-lasting as cotton candy since mid-November.
Like American chocolates that no longer contain real chocolate but sell like hotcakes at Halloween, the Netflix Christmas movie—like its rival Hallmark, the queen of Christmas movies—is used, even adored, for its peculiar style, its mechanical familiarity (nostalgic cast, minuscule budgets, polystyrene snow, deliberately absurd premise), and its undeniable artificial filling, for its ability to deliver doses of sugary pleasure without ever quite living up to expectations.
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Writer: Mark Steven Johnson
Stars: Minka Kelly, Tom Wozniczka, Thibault de Montalembert
At worst, these movies are forgettable disasters (like last week's "A Merry Little Ex-Mas"); at best, they're forgettable entertainment, like Lindsay Lohan's comeback film, "Falling for Christmas," which I remember nothing of except laughing hysterically with my friend on her couch. (Actually, at their best, they're ridiculously memorable, like last year's incredibly lighthearted "Hot Frosty.")
"Champagne Problems," Netflix's latest Christmas creation, gets lost in the vast spectrum of forgettable. Written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson, a former studio writer whose last Netflix rom-com, "Love in the Villa," was so disposable I forgot I reviewed it, it goes down like cheap sparkling wine—flat and situational.
It begins, naturally, with what one imagines to be an AI-generated ad for a drugstore champagne brand—if American pharmacies were legally allowed to market their own champagne. It turns out the ad is actually Sydney Price's (Minka Kelly) introduction to her colleagues at the Roth Group, a private equity fund (without, of course, mentioning the words "private equity") looking to acquire a prestigious champagne brand. With her ever-present TV curls and an endless collection of luxury coats, Sydney is the epitome of the ideal businesswoman: understated, obsessed with her phone, and ambitious to the point of neglecting her personal life and, indeed, her personality. So much so that when her domineering boss (Mitchell Mullen) selects her to travel to France to close the deal over Christmas, her sister Skyler (Maeve Courtier-Lilley) makes her a promise: she must spend just one night in Paris to truly enjoy herself.
Of course, there's no place like Paris to escape Google Maps, even when the city is blanketed in low-quality, computer-generated snow. In a cheesy bookstore, Sydney meets Henri Cassell (Tom Wozniczka), who gets her her beloved Google Maps. As is typical of the genre, Sydney initially resists this absurdly perfect man for silly reasons (work, a briefly mentioned divorce, nothing more).
As expected, the film's mechanics advance by leaps and bounds, like someone rotating bottles of vintage champagne in the cellars of Château Cassel, the vineyard Sydney aspires to acquire. The problem? Henri is the heir to Château Cassel, as reluctant to manage it as he is resentful of his father Hugo (Thibault de Montalembert) for having sold it; and, perhaps the film's most notable contribution to the genre, extremely critical of venture capital.
The conflict? Sydney sincerely believes she isn't dismantling this family business, and she competes for the acquisition against three stereotypical characters: a stern French lady (Astrid Whettnall), a stern blond German (Flula Borg), and a gay billionaire with delusions of grandeur (Sean Amsing, admirably, if irritatingly, unhinged). The unexpected twist? Sydney's repulsive colleague, Ryan (Xavier Samuel, who has more chemistry with Kelly in a single scene than Wozniczka does in the entire film), shows up unannounced. The catalyst? Henri and Sydney gaze longingly at each other in their pajamas, across a chasm in their economic visions.
The upside and downside, of course, is that none of this lasts longer than a mild nausea on an empty stomach. And there's no filler here that really grabs your attention: Kelly, still known for her role as the cunning and deceitful cheerleader in Friday Night Lights, simply fulfills her function, offering pure superficial sweetness and affectionate gestures, more of a maternal presence than a romantic lead. Wozniczka, for her part, provides just the right amount of charm.
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