Champagne Problems

Another Christmas season means new Netflix releases. If that gets tiring to you, then turn that pain into Champagne.

I was a Minka Kelley fan in Friday Night Lights and was excited to see starring here. The beginning of the movie was extremely cute and “before sunrise” esque. Sydney travels to Paris for a work presentation and spends her free night exploring the town. At a book store she thinks Henri is an employee and he becomes enamored with her and offers to show her around town. If they somehow made that the whole movie I would have been happy. However, we need some problems.

They sleep together and the next morning she runs off to her meeting she overslept for. Sydney works for a corporation trying to buy a local vineyard and is competing with other buyers to make the best offer while staying true to the wine. In the meeting… surprise! Henri walks in and is actually the owners son. He learns who she is working for and instantly changes tunes.

The movie was an easy watch for the most part and I enjoyed the tension between the two. I loved the shots of Paris and it brought me back to my visits. What really disappointed me was the amount of tropes they started shoving in our faces near the end. It felt original and unique, then they resorted to all the cheap tricks that I was hoping they’d deviate from.

Cheap tricks:
1. Sydney instantly knows how to fix the car of the owner who’s been trying for years.

2. The vineyard is sold to the party guy who appreciates the wine and thinks $60 mil is a drop in the bucket.

3. Henri overhears the conversation between Sydney and her colleague (that’s out in the open for some reason) about how the corporation is gonna cut out his dad and right before Sydney criticizes that he walks away.

4. Sydney leaves in the morning and Henri is able to still catch her right when she’s leaving the bookstore.

Maybe my expectations became too high because in the end it felt like your average light-hearted Christmas movie. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but I also wouldn’t dissuade you to check it out.

Rating: 473/1000