The New Holiday Film Critique – Netflix’s Newest Christmas Romcom Lacks Fizz.

Without wanting to come across as a holiday cynic, one must lament the early arrival of Christmas films before Thanksgiving. Even as temperatures drop, it feels premature to completely immerse in the platform’s yearly buffet of cheap festive entertainment.

Like American chocolates which don’t include genuine cocoa, the service’s holiday films are counted on for their brand of badness. They offer rote familiarity – nostalgic casting, modest spending, artificial winter scenes, and absurd premises. At worst, these films are unmemorable disasters; at best, they are forgettable fun.

The new Netflix film, the latest holiday offering, blends into the vast middle 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 context-dependent.

It begins with what appears to be an AI-generated ad for drug store brand champagne. This ad is actually the pitch of Sydney Price, played by the actress, to her coworkers at the Roth Group. The protagonist is the construction paper cut-out of a professional female – overlooked, phone-obsessed, and ambitious to the detriment of her personal life. When her boss dispatches her to Paris to finalize an acquisition over Christmas, her sister insists she take one night in the city to enjoy life.

Naturally, Paris is the ideal location to wrest one away from Google Maps, despite Paris is draped with below-grade CGI snow. At a overly quaint bookshop, Sydney meet-cutes with the male lead, who distracts her from her device. As demanded by rom-com conventions, Sydney at first rejects this perfect man for frivolous excuses.

Just as predictable are the movie mechanics that proceed at sudden shifts, reflecting the rotation of aging champagne bottles in the cellars of the family vineyard. The catch? Henri is the heir to Chateau Cassel, hesitant to run it and resentful toward his dad for putting it up for sale. Maybe the movie’s most salient contribution to romantic comedies, Henri is highly critical of private equity. The conflict? Sydney sincerely believes she’s not dismantling this family-owned company for parts, competing against three stereotypical rivals: a severe French grand dame, a rigid German, and an out-of-touch wealthy man.

The development? Her shady colleague the office rival shows up unannounced. The grist? Henri and Sydney gaze longingly at one another in holiday pajamas, across a vast chasm in economic worldview.

The gift and the curse is that nothing here lingers beyond a bubbly buzz on an empty stomach. There’s a lack of substantial content – the lead actress, most famous for her role in Friday Night Lights, gives a strictly serviceable 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 tricks are unfunny, the love story is harmless, and the happy-ever-after is straightforward.

Despite its waxing poetic on the luxury of sparkling wine, nobody claims it is anything other than a mass market item. The things to hate are the very reasons some enjoy it. One might call a critic’s feelings about it a minor issue.

• The Holiday Film can be streamed on Netflix.