Ivan Radford | On 24, Dec 2025

Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Cast: Minka Kelly, Tom Wozniczka, Thibault de Montalembert
Certificate: 12

You know how it goes. You’re working for a large American corporation planning to buy a vineyard in France, only to cross paths with a handsome Frenchman in Paris on your one night off. Will he turn out to have a connection with the vineyard? Will you decide that your company is a soulless commercial entity with no real interest in wine? Will the vineyard’s owner find a way to hand over his business without alienating his son, who isn’t interested in inheriting the family empire? All these things and more are answered in Netflix’s Champagne Problems – and the answers, like the problems themselves, are as lightweight and familiar as you’d expect from a Hallmark vintage Christmas film. And yet there’s a depth to this festive concoction that makes it go down surprisingly smooth and sweet.

Minka Kelly stars as Sydney, who finds out that she has to compete with several other bidders to win the approval of Hugo Cassell (Thibault de Montalembert), the owner of Chateau Cassell: there’s the logical German investor Otto (Pitch Perfect 2’s Flula Borg), ruthless champagne veteran Brigitte (Astrid Whettnall), who may or may not have a thing for Hugo, and playboy billionaire Robert (Sean Amsing) who doesn’t know how to make champagne but certainly knows how to drink it. All the while, she’s watched by the wary eyes of Henri (Tom Wozniczka), the heir apparent who just wants to open a book shop.

With the whole gang wholed up in the actual chateau for a weekend of pitching and socialising, what begins as a cookie-cutter affair bubbles into something unexpected. That’s in no small part thanks to the cast, who invest everything with tangible charm: between Flula Borg’s scene-stealing deadpan and Sean Amsing’s genuinely funny anecdotes and outburts, Minka Kelly and Tom Wozniczka have a believable spark of chemistry that’s seriously endearing. It helps that the script takes them seriously, spanning moral dilemmas and heartfelt reconciliation, not to mention actually letting the French characters speak in French. The result is bright and bubbly, but with notes of moving emotion – all of which adds up to make a festive tipple that’s worth uncorking.

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