High on the recommended list [of movies to open before the annual Dec. 31 deadline for Oscar consideration] there is the enchanting Chocolat, an unusual and magical film by the distinguished director Lasse Hallström -- his first since last year’s The Cider House Rules, and a real charmer that turns out to be as delectable as its title. Chocolat is a modern-day fable (read: fairy tale) about the restorative power of food that raises the photogenic splendors of hot fudge to a level of art worthy of an exhibition at the Guggenheim. The setting is a picturesque but stodgy and old-fashioned village in a remote region of France: resistant to change, suspicious of outsiders and firmly ensconced in the centuries-old didactic religious and social traditions that have kept its citizens moribund. On a blustery winter day while everyone is at Mass, a cold wind strong enough to blow out the altar candles sweeps into town a drifter named Vianne (Juliette Binoche), a cheerful but scandalously unmarried single mother, and her beautiful young daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol), both dressed like Little Red Riding Hood.
Vianne moves into an empty apartment above a shuttered store front and has the audacity to open a chocolate shop in the middle of Lent! While the dour, sullen mayor (Alfred Molina, as the most frustrated villain in years) does everything he can to poison the minds of the villagers against Vianne and drive her out of business, he is powerless against the mouthwatering aromas and welcoming confections that pour out of Vianne’s kitchen, lure curious customers into her shop and transform the dreary atmosphere of the grim town. One bite of her sumptuously sinful chocolate seashells and the town’s unsmiling and long-suffering widow (Leslie Caron) sheds the black mourning shrouds she’s been wearing since World War I and finds romance. Vianne’s crabby old landlady (Judi Dench) takes one sip of her hot cocoa with ground chili peppers and turns positively jolly and ribald. The rose creams with Cointreau empower an abused housewife (Lena Olin) with a new personality and the self-confidence to leave her violent, brutish husband.
Estranged families reunite, loveless marriages rekindle and children discover the joys of repressed adolescence as Vianne’s secret ingredients unlock hidden longings and unleash unfulfilled destinies. Even Vianne herself finds love and a sense of belonging with an unwelcome riverboat vagabond (Johnny Depp). But as her exotic truffles awaken a newly discovered taste for pleasure and freedom, the self-righteous mayor denounces the profound effect on his villagers as an erosion of morality. Something must be done to stop the fun, so the old goat declares war on chocolate and a near tragedy ensues. But this is an uplifting feel-good film, and even a rigid, bigoted, pious control freak like the mayor meets his Waterloo when it comes to desserts.
The film is gorgeously photographed, with all the splendid postcard views you might find in an illustrated edition of Maeterlinck’s The Bluebird, and the tongue-in-cheek performers are exhilaratingly secure in their grasp of the whimsical material. Ms. Binoche has never been less prosaic (read: vacuous) or more beautiful, but even she is sometimes upstaged by the chocolate. There is one delightful sequence in which she and her newly liberated friends prepare a lavish dinner for her landlord’s 70th birthday that is the most sensual exploration of food on film since Babette’s Feast. Mr. Hallström temporarily abandons his fine cast to lovingly zoom in on the whisks and spoons and ladles that whip vats of addictive chocolate into decadent macaroons, mocha kisses, marble cakes, mousses, tortes, Florentines and russes of indescribably rich rapture. My own easily tempted sweet tooth was so turned on by Chocolat that I headed for the nearest drug store and bought a Hershey bar. (Opens Dec. 15.)
This review appeared in the New York Observer on December 12, 2000.