With Christmas just around the corner, it’s the perfect time for a bit of romance. So why not dive straight into the Danish delights of Mango, a film about an overworked hotel franchise manager, sent to buy up a mango plantation in Málaga, so it can be bulldozed and made into a hotel complex?

The peculiarities of its release aside, Mango is a pretty harmless if uninspired romantic comedy. Telling the story of Lærke (Josephine Park), whose nicotine-product scoffing boss Joan (Paprika Steen) sends her out to the sunny Southern side of Spain, to scout out and buy up the prime real estate beneath the Mango trees. Of course, she has also brought her semi-estranged teenage daughter Agnes (Josephine Højbjerg) with her, and under the baking sun will bristle and eventually soften against the hard working and hunky but kind-hearted plantation owner, Alex (Dar Salim).

Similar to other Netflix ‘holiday romance’ films such as A Castle for Christmas, La Dolce Villa, or director Mehdi Avaz‘s previous movie, Toscana; this is yet another movie based around the tired and tested foreign romance movie template. It does exactly what it says on the tin, and if you go in expecting that much, you’ll be pleasantly entertained if not particularly surprised. The Spanish countryside is shot beautifully, and the rather thin excuses to have characters trot around the old city and the lush hillsides allow the film to serve as the tourist trap it presumably was partly funded to be.

It’s certainly not a bad experience, as Park and Salim both make for a likeable couple, with Salim especially showing that he’s good for far more than just the likes of swarthy action-man roles he’s had in TV shows like Game of Thrones or films like The Covenant. There’s a gentle kindness to him that hints at a vulnerability which the film never quite delves into, despite the inevitable tragic-backstory that surrounds him and his adopted daughter, Paula (Sara Jiménez). Similarly, the film does its damndest to make Park slightly, but not painfully, abrasive at the start, only to soften her character, costume and hair and make-up quite unsubtly during the film’s runtime.

It’s still painfully thin stuff, and as is often the case with these movies, there’s a sense that at some point there were probably a few subplots which threatened to make the whole movie a bit more interesting, such as a few vague hints at a brooding queer romance between the pair’s teenage daughters. Yet it never amounts to anything at all, and ends up feeling all rather pat by the end.

Ultimately there’s never an ounce of worry that this won’t all work out for the best, and in all honesty, it is perfectly enjoyable fluff that won’t make you feel at all like it’s Christmas. If you’re looking for 90-odd minutes of sun-kissed, mango-hued romantic nonsense then you won’t be disappointed here.

Available on Netflix now