This movie is meant to teach us to accept people for who they are, regardless of their beliefs or what sins we think they might have committed. A lot of times, I would criticize a character like hers for being one note, but for this movie particularly, I feel like her perfection fits the fable/ fairy tale element of the story. Vianne herself is pretty much a flawless character. This is one of the better magical realism films I’ve seen on screen there is never any onscreen magic or anything that might push this film into actually being a fantasy film, but there is plenty of magic infused through the beautiful settings, the colorful characters, and the childlike wonder that the whole story is told with.Ī lot of the magic in this film comes from Juliette Binoche’s absolutely wonderful performance as Vianne. There are plenty of films that try to replicate the storybook approach and fail spectacularly (the most recent adaptation of “Robin Hood”), but when a film can nail that tone of magical realism, it adds a fantastical element to the film that immediately hooks me. As a huge fan of fairy tales and fantasy books, I’ve come to love when films use the storybook framing device and can pull it off. The way this film infuses subtle hints of magic is probably my favorite part of the movie. Immediately my mind jumped to Red Riding Hood and the brothers Grimm, and that’s no accident. “Once upon a time, there was a little village in the French countryside, whose people believed in tranquilite- tranquility.” One of the first shots shows a mother and daughter, trekking across a windswept and barren field, shrouded in cowls of red. The tone of this film is what sells the whole movie for me, and the opening line sets that tone in a simply magical fashion. Among those whose lives are affected are an aging woman named Armande (Judi Dench, “Skyfall”), Armande’s daughter Caroline (Carrie-Anne Moss, “The Matrix”), a troubled woman named Josephine (Lena Olin, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”) and her husband Serge (Peter Stormare, “Fargo”), the new young priest Father Henri (Hugh O’Conor, “My Left Foot”), and a gypsy named Roux (Johnny Depp, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”). As Vianne’s single motherhood offends Comte de Reynaud, he begins a sort of morality war against Vianne, and soon the whole town finds themselves split between the chocolaterie and the mayor. Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche, “Summer Hours”, “Clouds of Sils Maria”) and her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol, “Ponette”) move to a small village in France where everyone obeys strict morality rules set in place by the mayor, Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina, “Vice”). “Once upon a time, there was a quiet little village in the French countryside…” I laughed, and yes, I cried, and I’d be more than happy to visit this little village and do it all again. This was not my first time seeing this film, and even on my rewatch, I found myself drawn, almost spellbound, into this world. For me, the joyous feeling I get when watching “Chocolat” is better than the feeling I get from many 5 Star films, so giving it a 4/5 Star rating was no problem for me. The average cinephile could easily pick apart the editing problems, the minor pacing issues in the second act, and the flat (sometimes boring) cinematography to give this a 3.5/5 Star film (if you’re cynical you could probably even go as low as 3/5). I think the average moviegoer will probably agree with me that this is a solid 4/5 Star film it’s a well-told story with marvelous performances and a fantastical world, but that’s not to say there aren’t issues. The things that I love about “Chocolat”- the sparkle of magical realism, the richness in details of the sets and locations, the fable-like tone of the story itself- will not appeal to all viewers, and that’s fine.
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