2025, Mark Steven Johnson (Ghost Rider) -- Netflix
The Draw: Budget. But also, because, back when we started rearing this beast I started with a Netflix take on the Hallmarkie, Holiday in the Wild followed by The Knight before Christmas. Both were part of Netflix's earlier forays into Hallmarkie territory but with the budgets of Netflix behind them. Eventually that allure faded for the Netflix-ian Purple Suits and they went down the more traditional Xmas romcom path. Remember, even without the trope-laden structure of a Hallmarkie, there have always been Xmas romcoms, but they always feel distinctly different than these. This year, Netflix seemed to add a few back into their roster.
That said, its not like Netflix actually produces these movies, they are just the distributers, but there strikes me as a distinction when the production companies get the go ahead because they know it will end up on Netflix, and construct with that in mind.
HERstory: We actually begin with the story of Dom Perignon, the monk not the expensive champagne, and how he "accidentally" discovered the bubbles. Then we almost immediately switch to the Big City with Sydney Price (Minka Kelly, Titans), a work work work woman from The Roth Group who gives an impressive presentation on how TRG can acquire floundering champagne producer Château Cassell, in France. Sydney impresses her boss so much, he sends her to Paris to meet with the company, who will also be hearing three other proposals.
Sydney is all about work but promises her little sister that she will enjoy at least one night, and thus builds an itinerary for speed-running Paris, all the places marked, with times. Except she has one gap -- a good bookstore to pickup something for her sister. The concierge, who have always been the magical figures in movies centered around hotels, suggests a quaint little place called Les Etoiles which is magic unto itself. Unfortunately, no its not a real Parisian bookstore but the movie is actually shot in Paris, as opposed to Vancouver. And in the bookstore she runs into the handsome helpful Henri (Tom Wozniczka, Slow Horses). He doesn't work at the bookstore.
They banter. They flirt. He's better at it than she is, after all he's Parisian. She has a terrible plan to see all the tourist spots and he offers to show her the real Paris, a better view of Paris (nudge nudge wink wink, say no more). And its Xmas in Paris, so all the wow's. They have Xmas Market crepes and mulled wine and macarons (he pronounces it correctly) and they end up at the Paris Ferris wheel for the more heartfelt all alone with a spectacular view conversation. It ends with, "I had a great life today..." and a proper non-Hallmarkie kiss, no interruptions. And then.... (GASP!) sex.
Next morning, after glow, and he's out getting coffee & croissant and ... she's late!! Off she rushes to the hotel, showers and dresses and has to run to the place where the work work meeting is happening. She comes in to find the other companies doing the presentation -- the prim Brigitte (Astrid Whettnall, Winter Palace), the flamboyantly gay playboy Roberto (Sean Amsing, Love, Guaranteed; I am not sure, but I think he plays the exact same character in this also Netflix also romcom movie) and the grim and proper Otto (Flula Borg, The Rookie; apparently Flula also plays D&D), from Germany. And then, just after Sydney is about to begin her presentation -- in walks the owner's son, Henri from last night.
Awkward. Especially since he seems to know the reputation of TRG better than Sydney does, and its not good.
The owner, Hugo (Thibault de Montalembert, The Tunnel), sees the challenges before him and decides he needs more time to decide on who should take over his legacy, that all the presenters should experience what making champagne is all about, and asks them all to come to the Château Cassell proper, in a quaint French version of the PST.
The idea Hugo has is to present each person with an experience of something involved in the wine making business. Just because its December, it doesn't mean everything shuts down. They snip at vines, they rotate bottles, they get to know each other. Roberto is all about hedonistic experience and spending his daddy's money, Otto is a cliche hoping to impress German precision on Hugo's family business, and Brigitte is a known factor and someone who has the eye of Hugo, the longtime widower as we learned on the Ferris wheel.
Sydney still wants to impress upon Hugo and Henri that she is about giving smaller businesses a chance to survive, but she doesn't know that her company has been gutting said businesses after she made the acquisitions. How she doesn't know this just says she is so very myopic. But seeing how she interacts with his father, whom she finds real affection for, softens Henri to her all over again. He even finds her cheese farts cute.
As I have mentioned before, so many of these Hallmarkies are as much about processing grief as they are about finding love. Hugo and Henri have never really reconciled about losing Henri's mother, and are in an angry, hurting, stagnant point of their lives. Sydney herself has never let herself move on to having her own life, since her mother's passing. The three really are what each other needs the most.
In the end, after the complication where Henri overhears Sydney complying with TRG's plans to entirely destroy Château Cassell, but not her quitting the company, and he tells her to go away, and she does, Hugo gives the company to the fop, as champagne is all about celebrating life and that is all Roberto does -- party. But a bond has formed among the quartet, which says each of their strengths will be leveraged in the future of this family company.
But Sydney has run away, back to Paris, back to the bookstore to grab something before she flies home to find a new job, a new adventure when.... Henri arrives. The kind of magic concierge has redirected him there for another kiss, a sealing of a future. We end the movie on a "one year later" Happily Ever After.
The Formulae: The movie makes use of them but in the more glitzy, glossy way that is Netflix's backing approval. The PST, all snow covered in French countryside December, is a quaint but not tiny village -- when they have the Xmas festival, the architecture is grand and sweeping and its more a rave with hundreds of attendees. We had the deadline, the signing of the deal before Xmas. We had the "smaller" Xmas fair where crepes and mulled wine are had. We had the complication, and we had rivalry, where in cheese is fed to a lactose intolerant girl (cute farts!). The less gratifying trope is where Sydney, who has worked hard to get where she is, dumps her job to stay in France with Henri, but at least it sounds like she finds alternate more gratifying work. Also, Henri doesn't have to take over his father's business, so gets to open his bookstore meets wine bar, his heart's dream.
Unformulae: Sex! Kissing before the final scene! Not shot in Canada! Did I mentioned SEX ?
True Calling? I guess it did? There was plenty of champagne and there were plenty of problems?
The Rewind: I had to check whether the flyover of the PST was AI generated or just the usual CGI enhanced shot. I am rather sensitive this year to the coming onslaught of AI generated material which will eventually replace what stock & CG footage used to provide. Oh, and I had to stop and rewind the cute puppy chases the bunny wabbit scene, especially when they puppy stumble... but the bunny is sooooo fake looking.
The Regulars: This is off-market Hallmarkie so no, nobody has done many of this kind of movie. But I think Minka could find a life in these movies, as she adapted well to the concept.
How does it Hallmark? In this world of post-Hallmark after-market producers & distributers, but with money, it does a decent job.
How does it movie? No, of course it doesn't. But what surprises me more is that people seemed to expect it to be a proper Xmas romcom. In reading through other reviews and recaps, I was surprised at how many people lambasted it for .... well, all the reasons people watch these kinds of movies. The plots are contrived, the characters 1.1 dimensional and the lines usually incredulous. But that's to be expected. If anything, the extra money behind this did enhance to a greater degree --- the sets were utterly spectacular. And I have to shout out to Flula, who plays his German weirdo act to perfection again. And if I am being honest, I rather adored Minka in this role -- she's a beautiful woman over 40 allowed to play a beautiful woman over 40.
How Does It Snow? There was some actual laid out snow in some chase-the-cute-puppy scenes.
Now I want to see a holiday romance by the Ghost Rider: Spirits of Vengeance (and Crank) guys.
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