The Christmas releases have officially begun with A Merry Little Ex-Mas last week, and now we have Champagne Problems, starring Minka Kelly, set in France. Sydney Price was a dedicated employee at The Roth Group; she had new ideas and a tremendous zeal to make it to the top of the corporate ladder. While her efforts mostly went ignored, she managed to impress her boss, Marvin, with the plan she came up with to acquire Chateau Cassell, a champagne company that was in debt. Marvin asked Sydney to pack her bags and leave for Paris. He wanted her to present her ideas directly to Hugo Cassell, the owner of Chateau Cassell. For the last three years, Ryan, one of the associates at the company, had been chasing Chateau Cassell, but nothing had really worked out between them. So, Marvin hoped that Sydney would bring something new to the table that Hugo would not be able to say no to. Before Sydney left for Paris, her younger sister made her promise to spend one night in Paris doing fun activities without the constant pressure of work. Sydney chose to respect the promise she’d made, and on her first night in Paris, she headed to a bookstore, where she met Henri, and that was the beginning of their Christmas love story.
Spoiler Alert
How did Sydney fix Henri’s relationship with his father?
Henri shared a complex relationship with his father. His mother passed away due to illness when he was a kid, and his father never really tried to be there for him. He was mostly alone, and his only companion was ‘Le Petit Prince,’ a book his mother gave him when he was 5 and read to him every night before he fell asleep. He could still smell his mother’s perfume on the pages of the book. His father didn’t approve of his son carrying the book everywhere, and he’d threatened to throw it in the trash. Henri tried his best to hide the book from his father, and one day he just couldn’t remember where he’d kept it anymore. He lost the book, but he remembered the fragrance of his mother’s perfume. Henri’s relationship with his father only worsened. He believed his father didn’t think he was capable of doing anything in life, and he aimed to prove him wrong. As the film progressed, we soon discovered that Henri was Hugo’s son. As the owner of Chateau Cassell, Hugo had hoped Henri would take over the reins of the family business, but unfortunately he refused to get involved. Henri desperately wanted to prove that he could build a business on his own, and he intended to start a bookstore with a wine bar. Henri and Sydney fell in love on the very first day that they met, but when Henri learned that Sydney represented The Roth Group, he started to doubt her intentions. Henri was well aware that the private equity fund company targeted small businesses and cannibalized them before selling them to the highest bidder. They’d previously done that with Chateau Laberge, and he was afraid that they would also do the same with Chateau Cassell. Sydney reassured Henri and Hugo that she would make sure that Hugo remained the president of the company even after he sold it to TRG. Sydney wasn’t the only one who’d made such a proposal to Hugo; there were others—Weigut (a German company) representative Otto Moller; a fun billionaire, Roberto Salazar; and Terrebonne (a French company) representative Brigitte Laurent. Hugo proposed they all pitch their ideas to him over the weekend so he could make the right decision. He invited them to his vineyard, and it helped him get to know his potential buyers a little better.
Hugo developed a friendly relationship with Sydney. He wasn’t afraid to share his troubled thoughts with her. During one of their conversations, Hugo mentioned that he regretted not being there for Henri when he was a kid. Coping with the loss of his wife had been difficult for him, and in the process, he ignored his son. He focused on his business and ignored every other aspect of his life at the time. His biggest regret was that he couldn’t get back the lost times, and he believed that was all the more reason why he never developed a loving relationship with Henri. Sydney reminded him that while he couldn’t go back to the past, he still had the present, and he must seize the opportunity to truly know his son before it was too late. Hugo believed that his son largely despised him, but Sydney reassured Hugo that his son missed him too. Later, when Sydney spoke to Henri, she mentioned that his father deeply missed him, and when Henri wanted to know more about their conversation, she suggested that it was important that his father told him how he felt. Later that night, Hugo finally gathered the courage to speak to his son from the heart. He apologized to Henri and admitted that he’d failed to be there for his son when he needed him the most. Henri was emotional; he stated that although he believed his father thought that he was a disappointment for not following in his footsteps, he’d always known that he needed to find his own path. But as it turned out, Hugo didn’t hold a grudge against his son for not taking over Chateau Cassell, instead he wished Henri the best on his journey to find his path. Both the men agreed that Sydney had impacted their lives to the extent that they were no longer afraid of addressing their emotions.
Why did Sydney leave?
Sydney was under the assumption that she would be helping Chateau Cassell grow after TRG took over. She thought Hugo would continue as the president, and they would try to make the champagne brand even bigger and better. But when Ryan arrived at the French vineyard (Melvin wasn’t sure anymore if Sydney would manage to pull off the job he’d sent her to do), he informed Sydney that Takami Import has already shown interest in taking over Chateau Cassell. As it turned out, Hugo’s lawyers had reached out to TRG for the handover, and according to Ryan, Melvin planned to flip Chateau Cassell to Takami Imports, and of course, he didn’t intend to share this information with Hugo. Sydney wasn’t comfortable with the idea of keeping Hugo in the dark, especially since she was the one dealing with him. Selling off his family business was already an extremely difficult decision for him, and to be stabbed in the back so soon after would completely destroy him. Sydney had made up her mind to not work with TRG anymore. Meanwhile, Henri overheard the conversation between Sydney and Ryan, but he missed the most important bit, where Sydney expressed her concern and disappointment in TRG. He assumed that Sydney was a typical corporate employee who betrayed the trust of others for profit. So, when he crossed paths with Sydney again, he decided to end things with her. Sydney didn’t quite understand why he had come to this decision, and it broke her heart. That night, she decided to have a word with Hugo. She mentioned how her mother had started a business, but she’d failed, which was why Sydney had dedicated her life to saving small businesses because it made her feel closer to her mother. She told him everything that TRG had planned and begged him to save his business before it was too late. Sydney decided to leave the vineyard that night; she believed she’d done her part, and she was no longer interested in representing TRG.
What choice did Hugo make in the end?
Ryan was confident that Hugo would publicly announce his decision to sell his business to TRG, but to his surprise, things didn’t work out according to his plan. He was all the more surprised when he discovered that Sydney had left. Towards the end, Hugo announced that he’d decided to sell his business to Roberto, the bubbly and party-loving billionaire, who had nothing but the best interests at heart for Chateau Cassell. Roberto was an ardent fan of the champagne brand, and he was ready to buy it for the sake of keeping it alive. Everyone in the room was shocked, including Roberto. But Hugo had faith in Roberto, and when Ryan mentioned that he was making a terrible mistake, Hugo retorted, stating that he would’ve made a mistake had it not been for Sydney, who warned him against TRG. Roberto made it very clear that he didn’t know how to run the champagne business, and he would rather become a business partner and let Hugo run the operations. He agreed to cover the 60 million euro debt the business was in, and they celebrated the new partnership with champagne!
Did Sydney and Henri end up together?
Henri regretted misunderstanding Sydney, and all he wished for was to meet her again. He’d realized there was a special connection between them when he met her for the first time, and especially after she found him the ‘Le Petit Prince’ book he’d lost as a child. Hugo encouraged his son to chase the love of his life before it was too late. He’d learned from Sydney to never live with regret, and he advised the same to Henri. He drove his father’s old Fiat to Paris, but by the time he reached her hotel, she had already checked out. The concierge, Marcel, sensed that Henri was the man Sydney had fallen in love with (she’d mentioned it to him), so he directed Henri to the bookstore where they first met, since Sydney had decided to go there before she left. The concierge presence was quite magical since in the end he was the one who played a crucial role in reuniting the lovers.
Sydney was surprised to see Henri at the bookstore. He apologized for misunderstanding her, and he admitted that he couldn’t quite express his feelings in English. Sydney wasn’t sure if he wanted her back in his life, and so she decided to leave. She embraced him, and in that moment they realized how impossible it’d be for them to spend the rest of their lives apart. As Sydney was about to walk away, Henri stated that she was missing from his life, and Sydney confessed that she felt the same way.
In Champagne Problems’ ending, we fast-forward to one year later. Sydney and Henri were still in love and Hugo was in a relationship with Brigitte. Henri built the bookstore of his dreams and named it ‘La Petit Rave’ (The Little Dream). Otto was more than happy to read the children at the store the frightening story of Krampus. Roberto was at the place he loved the most—the wine bar. He was glad that he’d partnered with Hugo (a silent partner) because clearly this was the life he had always envisioned for himself. The bookstore wasn’t unbelievably profitable, but they were doing good enough to keep the business running. Sydney was the COO, and according to Henri, she was doing a great job. At the end of the day, everything panned out well, and they presumably lived happily ever after.
