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Chocolat Customer Reviews (61 - 63 of 72 Reviews)

"...relax your intellectual faculties..."
All the women I know -many far more bright than I am- liked this movie. (I suspect a rather different attitude to food and the "witch complex" might have something to do with it).
I happen to believe that "magical realism" has devolved to a nearly protoplasmic state since Borges: so I liked the movie too, as it reaffirmed my belief.
People have mentioned several movies that did the same, but better: dare I add to the (long) list, and suggest "Breaking the Waves" (a good example of how "arty chick flicks" actually can have guts sometimes) or Kubrics "Clockwork Orange" (as it shows the consequences of "Chocolat"s attempt at philosophy)?.
Or maybe there just wasnt enough topless scenes. What do I know...

A story of enlightment that hardly ever faults
Chocolat

Score: 83/100

"That day, the towners not only heard a song of church, but an enlightening of the spirit," is a memorable line said late in the magical film that is Chocolat. The quote in the film kind of rings out to the entire movie - the day that you see Chocolat, it won't just be any movie, it'll be an enlightening, refreshing experience that you're sure to like.

1960, small town France. Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) and her pre-teen daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) move into town and open a chocolate shop just as lent is beginning. The town's small-minded mayor can't accept this and does his best to shut her down, but her warm personality and incredible chocolates manage to win over many townsfolk. Things get shaken up even more when a group of river drifters, led by Roux (Johnny Depp), stop into town (to the even greater distress of the mayor) and Vianne takes up with him. Meanwhile, she's been helping Josephine (Lena Olin) out of her abusive marriage and her equally freethinking landlord, Amande Voisin (Judi Dench) get together with her grandson, Luc (Aurelien Parent-Koeing), whose mother doesn't approve of Amande's ways.

The film is overflowing with it's share of brains and complete maturity throughout the character's hard situations. The actors all play these interesting people to absolute perfection, Juliette Binoche shines brighter than she ever has as the eager Vianne, and Judi Dench is her classical self as Armande. Also, actors that didn't get nominated for Academy Awards (Binoche and Dench did) also put in heaps of effort, Lena Olin is believable and eye-widening as Josephine and Johnny Depp as Roux...well, his coolness just goes without saying. The film has a rich and tasty feel to it, you can almost taste the chocolate Vianne is cooking, oh yes...when the cameramen allow the eye of the camera to go on the silky chocolate swishing through the cooking objects and breaking on the bowl, wow, I tell ya, you better be prepared to drool not only at the film and the chocolate, but it's ingredients and content.

Chocolat is a greatly intriguing piece of work, one that is endlessly delightful, and only contains a pinch of a fault.

Melt a little
If you want to know what's wrong with this movie, read a dozen or so of the one-star reviews. On the other hand, there must be something good about a film that inspires such hostility from such a bunch of bitter and cynical semi-literates. Personally, I empathized with the leading lady. I don't go to church, and I don't like what the Catholic church stands for --- although, as they say, many of my best friends are Catholics. One or two of the carpers said that offering chocolate to Catholics during Lent is like opening up a pork butcher's in a community of rigorously orthodox Jews. It isn't. The real point is that if people want to eat chocolate during Lent, why shouldn't they? And what right does anyone have to stop them? Chocolate is a fundamentally harmless substance, even if it's not good for diabetics. People's lives are their own: they don't belong to any community by right --- only by agreement. This is a beautifully shot film, charmingly and engagingly acted by an interesting and attractive cast. I can't quite include the Depp character in this generalization, as I didn't think his part was sufficiently well realized. However, I wouldn't say the piece was flawless otherwise. Perhaps it's because the theme is unresolved. It starts as a fantasy fable: this woman clearly arrives with her little daughter from nowhere, carrying impossibly heavy luggage, transported by nothing visible, wearing strange clothing. The wares she sells appear as if by magic. Is she some sort of witch from the Otherworld? It looks like it, but gradually it seems that she is human after all, and would just like to put down roots. Is this the point of it all --- that in the end we have to compromise? Cowboys have to be friends with farmers. It's all a little slight. The most genuinely tragic character is played by Peter Stormare, who is the real victim of this village life set-up, and he is just brushed out of the picture. An in-depth analysis of his fate and psyche would have opened up a really gripping can of worms. Too much to swallow, of course.

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