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Chocolat Customer Reviews (37 - 39 of 72 Reviews)

Yummy!!...
This movie is so well made, it is sometimes difficult to remember it was filmed in 2001 and not 1959. It's a mouth-watering experience. Being that I own this movie now, and have seen it 3 or 4 times, I always order chocolate-drizzled brownies from a local restaurant while we watch it. Beware, you don't want to see this one without something sweet.

Vianne(Binoche) and her daughter Anouke, travel with the North winds. On this new journey(in 1959), they land in a small town outside France that seems to be stuck in a time warp.

"Tranquility" , says the town mayer, is the "motto" of his small province. Vianne and her Chocolaterie, bright red shoes, sexy clothes, and illegitimate daughter are exactly what the mayor does not welcome into his quiet little town. Epecially, during Lent.

Vianne still manages to stir up love and lust with her ancient chocolate formulas under the watchful eye of the Mayor. "One bite and you are hooked". Her time in the little moral town is interupted with wonderful characters and new friends. I loved Johnny Depp as the gypsy who lands his riverboat alongside the little town, only to cause distubances amongst the chuch-going frenzy of people. He and Juliet Binoche light up the screen and make a sexy match.

The movie, although a dramatic one, has some outrageous funny moments as well. Dame Judi Dench, one of my favorite actresses, plays the landlord of Vianne's Chocolaterie. Every word out of her mouth is sarcastic and somewhat "dirty"(very reminiscent of her small coveted role in Branagh's "Henry V"). I enjoyed her truthfulness and laughed along with her lines.

It doesn't need to be Valentine's Day for someone to enjoy this delicious movie. Why not buy it and package it with a box of chocolates for your sweetheart.

Delicious
Coming from Lasse Hallstrom, the director of 'Cider House Rules', this film is sweet as it's name. It is a simple story set in a French village in the late 1950s. Vianne ( Juliette Binoche ) who migrates from village to village comes here alongwith her daughter Anouk ( Victoriwe Thivisol ) on a cold windy day. She rents a shop from Amande ( Judi Dench ) to open a delightful Chocolaterie. Her little shop introduces the villagers to the pleasures of delectable chocolate and spiced hot cocoa which Vianne prepares and serves personally. She befriends many with her knack of guessing each one's favourite flavour. Little does she know that this town is controlled by the Mayor ( Alfred Molina ) who is an orthodox man and despises all such worldly pleasures. He uses the church sermons to preach the village folk to stay away from such temptations he considers sins and makes no pretence of his dislike towards Vianne. The movie is about how Vianne takes up this challenge fighting her own insecurities and seduces the village with her fine art of making sinfully tempting chocolates. There are several subplots in the film - one of a battered wife Josephine (Lena Olin ) who stands up for herself , Amande's bitter relation with her daughter and her longing to be with her grandson, the Mayor's own inauthenticity and the bad boy gypsy Roux ( Johnny Depp ) who plays the love interest of Vianne.

The movie is warm and sensitive. There is a lot of lighthearted humour brought out in various situations. The scenes that show the making of delicious and eye-catching chocolates are delightful. All chocolate lovers will be lip smacking at those very moments. But, movie's strength is in exposing the hypocrisy of those who claim to be close to God but have chosen the path of denial even to such simple a pleasure as enjoying a chocolate. It teaches us to drop all the significance we give to our lives instead of just relishing our moments.

Vianne's character as the charming chocolatier is played to perfection by Juliette Binoche. While, Albert Molina as the repressive Mayor is excellent. Johnny Depp gives the romantic angle to the film. Judi Dench as the old indulgent Amande is graceful.

See this one, it will bring a sweet smile to your face.

An engaging way to spend two hours
My expectations for this movie would be that it would be one of those uplifting but ultimately shallow movies where a predictable and heavy-handed plot would drag the movie along. I was pleasantly surprised that this movie was far more than I had originally thought it would be. This movie tells the story of a dull French town which has existed in a tradition of religious piety and colorless humility for centuries. Only the arrival of Juliette Binoche who opens a chocolate shop can change the town. Binoche is one of those actresses that seems to radiate an inner beauty in films. Just watching her is a pleasant experience since she seems so lovely (and not just on a physical level). At times the plot did seem somewhat predictable, but I fell in love with this movie anyway. The setting was lovely and I thought that many of the actors were just perfect for their roles, particularly the child actors. I will admit that the accents were sort of strange, you had real French actors with believable accents interacting with British and American random accents, plus Johnny Depp's Irish accent was a bit off target. And the voice-overs were heavy-handed, seemingly to explain things in the movie that you'd have to be sleeping through the movie to not have understood. But I enjoyed this movie and found it genuinely moving and sincere. I hate reading a review that retells the plot of the movie and spoils it for someone who has never viewed it, so just go out and see this movie and you'll see what I mean!

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