Chocolat

Plot synopsis:
Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche), an expert chocolatier, drifts across Europe with her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol), following the north wind. In the beginning of the Lenten season in 1959, "fifteen years after the War," they travel to a quiet French village that closely adheres to tradition, as led by the village mayor, the Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina). Just as the villagers begin observing the forty days of Lent, Vianne opens a chocolate shop, much to Reynaud's displeasure.
Vianne wears more colorful clothing than the village women, is an atheist, and has an illegitimate child. She does not fit in well with the townspeople, but is nevertheless optimistic about her business. Her friendly and alluring nature begins to win the villagers over one by one, causing Reynaud to openly speak against her for tempting the people during a time of abstinence and self-denial. The Comte will not admit that his wife has left him; he is romantically interested in Caroline, but he does not pursue her.
One of the first to fall under the spell of Vianne and her confections is Armande (Judi Dench), her elderly, eccentric landlady. Armande is unhappy that her cold, devoutly pious daughter Caroline (Carrie-Anne Moss) will not let Armande see her grandson Luc because Caroline thinks Armande is a "bad influence". Vianne arranges for Luc and his grandmother to see each other in the chocolaterie, where they develop a close bond. Caroline later reveals to Vianne that her mother is a diabetic, though Armande continues to eat the chocolate despite her condition. Having lost her husband, Caroline is overly protective of Luc and does not even want her son to play.
Vianne also develops a friendship with a troubled woman, Josephine (Lena Olin), who is a victim of brutal beatings by her abusive husband Serge (Peter Stormare). After a particularly violent blow to the head, Josephine leaves her husband and moves in with Vianne and Anouk. As she begins to work at the chocolate shop and Vianne teaches her her craft, Josephine becomes a self-confident, changed woman. At the same time, under the instruction of Reynaud, Serge, having seemingly changed into a better man, asks Josephine to come back to him. Finally happy and fulfilled on her own, Josephine declines his request. A drunken Serge breaks into the chocolaterie later that night and attempts to attack both women, before Josephine, in a moment of empowerment, knocks him out with a skillet.
As the rivalry between Vianne and Reynaud intensifies, a band of river gypsies camp out on the outskirts of the village. While most of the town objects to their presence, Vianne embraces them, developing a mutual attraction to the Traveller Roux (Johnny Depp). Together they hold a birthday party for Armande with other village members and gypsies on Roux's boat. When Caroline sees Luc, who sneaked out to the party, dancing with his grandmother, she begins to see how strict she has been with her son and that his grandmother's influence in his life may after all be beneficial. After the party, Josephine and Anouk fall asleep on a boat, while Roux and Vianne make love. Late that night, Serge sets the boat, where Josephine and Anouk are sleeping, on fire. Both escape unharmed, but Vianne's faith in the village is shaken.. Luc helps Armande home from the party; her death soon after devastates both him and his mother. After the fire, Roux packs up and leaves with his group, much to Vianne's sadness.
Serge later sees Reynaud in his home to confess to his causing the fire, which Reynaud initially thought as divine intervention and becomes horrified at the thought of people almost getting killed as a result. Realizing that Serge is beyond help or fearing that people would blame him as well for the arson, Reynaud demands that Serge leaves the village and never comes back.
With the return of the north wind, Vianne decides that she cannot win against Reynaud or the strict traditions of the town. She decides to move elsewhere. Anouk refuses to go, and during a scuffle, an urn containing the ashes of Vianne's mother falls and shatters. After a moment, Vianne goes into her kitchen to see a group of townspeople, who have come to love her and the way she has changed their lives, making chocolate for the festival Vianne had planned on Easter Sunday. Realizing that she has brought change to the town, she decides to stay.
Despite the shifting sentiment in the town, Reynaud remains staunch in his abstinence from pleasures such as chocolate. On the Saturday evening before Easter, he sees Caroline leave the chocolatier, which devastates him. Convinced now that chocolate will make people stray from their faith, he sneaks into Vianne's house in order to ruin Vianne's preparations for the Easter festival. After accidentally tasting a bit of chocolate that fell on his lips, he finally yields to temptation and devours much of the chocolate in the window display before collapsing into tears and eventually falling asleep. The next day, Vianne awakens the chastened mayor, and a mutual respect between them is established. Both the Easter Sunday sermon and the festival are a success. Josephine takes over running Serge's café which she renames Café Armande. Vianne throws her mother's ashes out the window and the north wind leaves.
Roux returns in the summer to be with Vianne, and despite her constant need for change, she resolves to stay, having found a home for herself and her daughter in the village.

Tags: cute, violence, magical realism, flashback, feel-good, psychedelic, romantic, historical, storytelling

Review:
I don't think it's any more predictable than an average Hollywood film; I find most action films much more predictable and shallow.The most beautiful thing about the movie (as about Hallström movies generally) is the wise, warm-hearted story about things that matter: love, sincerity, tolerance, standing up for the things you believe are righteous and good, and enjoying the simple pleasures in life, like a good dinner with friends, or like chocolate :) And Hallström tells his stories so delicately, in his very own style, with fine nuances and a twinkle of humour in his eye.
There are parts of the film that look like they could belong to a particularly delectable episode of `Martha Stewart Living', but if you can get past the pangs of hunger it will certainly inflict, you will find there is a lot more to this seemingly charming and simple story.The film plays in the style of all whimsical children's fairy tales, while at the same time blending in a series of very serious adult themes.
It chronicles the exploits of single mother Vianne Rocher, played as usual to a wonderful effect by Juliette Binoche, and her sugary but confused 6-year-old daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol), who blow in on a forceful winter wind to the small rural French town of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes.
At start it seems the Rochers are losing, but the fight soon turns as the townsfolk begin to discover the mouth-melting effects of Vianne's wonderful taste-teasing treats.Misadventure after misadventure occur as the couple come in contact with a wide array of colorful characters (just when you think he must be an extra in comes Johnny Depp), solving their problems while at the same time selling their chocolates.
Apparently the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences share my views as the film was nominated for five academy awards, Best Picture, Best Actress (Binoche), Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score.Chocolat is a mouthwatering piece of movie magic.
It's a story of the human condition and how even deep prejudices can be overcome by the simple act of kindness and the willingness to strive for individuality.I have to admit the only reason I wanted to watch this movie at first was because of Johnny Depp.
Binoche is Vianne Rocher, a woman who uses her exotic recipe for chocolate to unlock the repressed sensibilities of the predominately Catholic citizenry, heretofore kept under the rigid and righteous thumb of the Mayor, Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), with no respite or help, even from the town's young and inexperienced priest, Pere Henri (Hugh O'Conor).
Judi Dench (Amande), meanwhile, does a terrific character turn as a mother whose daughter, Caroline (Carrie-Anne Moss), deems her an embarrassment and a bad influence on her son, Luc (Aurelien Parent-Koening), and Lena Olin (Josephine) is outstanding as well, as an unhappy woman who finds hope in Vianne's undaunted spirit.
Possibly the `sweetest' film of the year, as well as one of the best, `Chocolat' is a visual and emotional triumph that will warm your heart and make your taste buds salivate, with a story and characters as rich and satisfying as the candy they embrace.
It's a film with a human touch whose images and sensitivity will remain with you long after the screen has gone dark; an uplifting, entertaining movie that proves that the answers to the mysteries of life just may be found in that box of chocolates, after all.
Beautiful movie from master-director Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules, The Shipping News, What's Eating Gilbert Grape) with wonderful performances by Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, and Hallström's wife Lena Olin.
"Chocolat" is a very beautiful and touching movie about a single mother with a daughter who decides to open a "chocolaterie" in a very conservative village during Lent.
What follows almost looks like a fairytale: the characters, the story, the music, the whole idea of an old conservative French village I liked the movie a lot.
The story has all the elements of a wonderful fairy tale yet the perfect direction and the delightfully authentic french setting makes it serious movie.
Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter open a chocolate shop in a small French town where the mayor has suppressed all forms of happiness.
Lasse Hollstrom's latest film, Chocolat, knows all about that person.Juliette Binoche stars as Vianne Rosher, a chocolate shop owner who not only gets people to talk about their forbidden fruits, but also has the ability to make people happily indulge in them.
The guitar-twanging Johnny Depp (reuniting with his Gilbert Grape director), with a ponytail and an Irish accent, compliments her with a rugged look and easygoing charm that makes his fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants character a perfect soulmate for Binoche.I recommend stopping by the candy counter or sneaking in some Fannie May confections before the movie starts.
Then the character Roux (Johnny Depp) is considered a "river rat" by the villagers but ends up as Vianne's own personal piece of chocolate that opens her eyes to happiness.
And it's one of the greatest movies I already saw, with such a good atmosphere and also one of the most appetizing scenes ever.(It's really hard watching this movie while you are on a diet!) (Juliette Binoche is terrific as Vianne Rocher and Johnny Depp as Roux is so sexy!)Viane Rocher is the owner of a chocolaterie in a small Town of France; She and her daughter Anouk are always traveling to different places to live,following the Maya's tradition, since Viane herself is daughter of a Mayan woman.In the small town, Viane makes new friends, and tries to help the people there with her cacao recipes and her talent to guess the deep desires and the favorite chocolates of everybody who talks to her.
Her problems start to complicate when the Comte De Reynaud tries to boycott her store, and a sexy foreigner named Roux come to the small town with his group,making Vianne attracted to him and for the first time not guessing what is his favorite chocolate and what is behind the mysterious guy..
The acting is overall very good, Alfred Molina,Julliete Binoche and Judi Dench specifically are stunning in their roles.I highly recommend this film.
But the story is good as well, without getting boring, speaking about the love that can tie family and friends together, the stereotypes that support closed communities of the countryside and how a simple ingredient like chocolate, can turn everything upside down.
Okay, the film has a first rate cast including the wonderful Oscar Winner Juliette Binoche who plays a single mother who comes to a small village in La Belle France where the rules are governed by a small-minded mayor.
The year is 1959, but it might just as well be a century or more before, for all the intrusion of modern times and technology in this story of a mysterious woman (Binoche) and her daughter who arrive in a small French town and open a chocolate shop during Lent, which angers the mayor, a devout and intolerant count (Molina) who vows to put her out of business.
Binoche is most fetching, Olin fine as a battered wife who blooms (it is magical just for a film buff to contemplate how the actresses and their roles have changed since they were together in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"), Molina a wonderful "villain," and Judi Dench as a crusty diabetic landlady somehow made me cry nearly every time she came on screen.
Well, when the movie started up, I got the main concept right away and was immediately interested, which they were very satisfactory at material like that, by that I mean, they weren't trying so hard to get the point through of what they wanted you to understand, they just followed the expression, "go with the flow" and that definitely worked out for the unquestionable better for this movie!I immediately fell in love with Juliette Binoche's character Vianne, because they do an excellent job at establishing her character to where you really care for her and admire her, same for many of the other main and supporting characters like Josephine, Armande and Roux.
This movie had amazing character structure which in the end benefited it greatly, because that is one of the things I look for in every movie, that they are able to introduce their characters with strong, effective personalities and dispositions, you understand what they are basically like right away, and magnificently all the actors and actresses were able to do that with their characters, as I have already stated and praised a couple of times; Juliette Binoche deserved an Oscar, and Carrie-Ann Moss, Johnny Depp, Lena Olin, Judi Dench, Alfed Molina etc.
I couldn't help but be so mesmerized and entranced by how wonderfully they were able to create this strange, but lovable atmosphere of these people, not wanting to accept change to their quiet and "cardboard" little town, but then something so simple as chocolate is able to turn all their perspectives on life around all at once, which is a great and true message: The simplest things sometimes can make the biggest impact, and this movie definitely showed that and handled the idea incredibly well.I love this movie, and the whole time I was watching, I had never wanted to consume chocolate so much in my life!
I truly think it is really something special when a movie can just make the audience want to go out and do something or want to cooperate and or feel what the characters are feeling, and I mean that in a good sense of course, because the whole time I was watching this movie, I just wanted to experience these amazing experiences that the characters were experiencing and I even felt jealousy come over me as they obtained these opportunities!This film certainly is nowhere near bad and or mediocre in any way!
With the arrival of some river drifters things become harder for Rocher especially as she tries to help some of the villagers who have been trapped behind the walls of respectability.With heaps of praise for this movie and the cast featuring the promise of the always interesting Johnny Depp, I took the chance to watch this film on television recently hoping for an enjoyable time.
Chocolat is a fantasy-comedy with the owner of a gourmet chocolate shop, Vianne(Juliette Binoche) and her daughter, Anouk, who was born out of wedlock, opening the store during Lent at a small, mostly Catholic village, causing much consternation.
Folks, this was not really about "chocolate." That was just a cover-up for the cultural agenda advanced by the screen writers.Here are just some of the things in the film (facts not opinion):All the Catholics in this small French town are shown to be pious which translates to filmmakers - as portrayed in this movie - as "narrow-minded, stuffy, puritanical, nasty, almost illiterate, etc.
The crude old lady (Judy Dench) who admits her daughter won't have anything to do with her because she drinks and swears and doesn't care what others think, or the main character (Juliette Binoche) who blows into town and promptly turns her nose up at local custom and then acts surprised when some modicum of resistance presents itself to her style, both refuse to recognize other people's sensibilities.
I thought it would be good but it wasn't.A single mum who doesn't go to church arrives in a small town to open a chocolate shop on lent.
it's a good movie, and easy watch, a bit of a feel good (though it does have some down parts), pretty well acted, decent story and makes you want to travel and make chocolate.
The main difference with Chocolat is that it is set in a quaint old French town (the rustic beauty of which is the movie's only redeeming feature from this reviewer's perspective), and it throws in a buckshot load of popular Catholic bashing as something of a bonus.Bringing our comparisons up to date, this slightly surreal film is American Beauty with the town's patriarch and mayor playing the role of the ex-marine across the street.
Very fine movie about the effect one woman, her daughter and her talent for bringing out the best in people in their newest chocolate shop in France.
"The Cider House Rules" director Lasse Hallstrom sees these charms and wisely makes them the focal point of this likable film.Juliette Binoche stars as a mysterious but likable woman name Vianne who comes to a small, bland and morally rigid French town run by the Catholic church and opens a chocolate shop with her imaginative young daughter.
Cold on the outside but clearly soft on the inside, of all the Oscar nominations, somehow Molina's performance -- in my opinion the film's best -- was overlooked.Vianne's chocolate creates quite the stir, improving one couple's love life, inspiring a wife (Lena Olin) to leave her abusive husband and reuniting a old woman (Judi Dench) with her grandson.
The most wonderful thing about this movie has to be the cast, headed by the beautiful Frenchwoman Juliette Binoche as Vianne, a nomad who travels with her daughter and sets up shop in a tiny French village.
I'm not really a big fan of romantic comedies like "Chocolat" but I have to admit that I had a great time watching it on theaters back in 2000.Juliette Binoche's performance is truly tender and brave at some points.
In fact, it fits with the movie's magical tone.The idea of having chocolate as an important part of the plot makes this the perfect romantic date, plus it has Johnny Depp for the ladies.The plot, costumes, settings, and situations are very wise and sweet for almost every kind of audience.Give "Chocolat" a chance and you won't regret but only if you're in the mood..
People enjoy the chocolate, but the shop comes under fire when it stays open during lent, causing temptation among the townspeople.Chocolat has an awesome story that is kept in balance with everything going on in the town it takes place in.
The movie doesn't solely focus on the problems the woman (well played by Juliette Binoche) is having with her chocolate shop, but also with the town's mayor, an abusive husband, a woman's relationship with her mother, and a band of gypsies that come passing through.
Ever since The English patient hit the screens, the charmingly Juliette Binoche is to be enjoyed thoroughly in whatever film she appears in, but in Chocolat, where she roams around as a nomadic one child-mother in her home country France, she gets more out of here performance than just cuteness.Of course, the purpose of the film is a romantic one, with Johnny Depp easily fulfilling his character as a notable gypsy and romantic interest of Binoche, and Alfred Molina as the classic malefactor in this story of the powers of chocolate.
But the well casted Binoche steals the show with her French savoir-faire on the subtleties of yearning and seduction.Not seduction in a Sharon Stone way, A Kim Basinger or even a Jennifer Lopez way, but one that makes her a true believable girl next door, while still keeping that enigmatic secret, that every nomad seems to have.While we must not forget the nice performance of the supporting actors (of which Alfred Molina and Judi Dench stand out), it is Binoche that shows how to incorporate a romantic story with a deeper layer, without getting corny or boring, although we all know where it's gonna end.And that's where romantic films need to score: on a niche in the thematic material, or the characters of the romance, who want to be followed through their hurdles-taking.Chocolat succeeds handsomely with this, which makes it recommended not only for enamored couples of any age, but of everyone who wants a taste of what gives people their energy in struggling for a place of their own..
All the actors in this awful travesty -- Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, even the cute little dogs -- have done far better work, which "Chocolat" is obviously trying to cash in on.In short, a good date movie -- if your date just happened to have had a lobotomy.
I am not normally into human film stories and are more of an action movie person, however the storyline was surprisingly quick moving and always left you with a warm feeling and wanting to know what is going to happen next in the lives of each of the people who Binoche's character has impacted upon.
Such a beautiful story and a beautiful cast, I always feel that the mark of a good film is when you cannot think of anyone who could have played each of the roles any better.
this is the kind of movie that transport you to a different world and actually the main character which is the Chocolat has a very intelligent and creative way to show into the film .
But it was about so much more than just the amazingly delicious-looking chocolate.Juliette Binoche is amazingly charming and enchanting, playing the lead role in this fairy tale about a woman named Vianne and her daughter who move to a repressed small town in France, and throw it into turmoil by attacking the taboos of the townspeople one by one.
We are being told of a woman (Juliette Binoche) who, along with her daughter, arrive to the village square to open a chocolate shop.
Is the colorful movie in which the charming Juliet Binoche plays a lovely roll as Vianne, a single mother who came out of nowhere with a cute little daughter to set up shop in a 1950ies village in central France.
Juliette Binoche play a woman who moves to town with her young daughter and open a chocolate shop.
This gorgeous and moving film has been unfairly compared to "Like Water For Chocolate," which was a completely different movie with a very different story.