Barnes & Noble

This modest but handsome Chocolat enchants viewers with its whimsical charm, beguiling characters, and unerring insights, while providing the best English-language vehicle to date for the luminous Juliette Binoche. Binoche portrays a peripatetic single mother who arrives in a sleepy French village and establishes a chocolate shop during Lent. She displays a remarkable facility for sensing the moods of customers and finding confections to match, but the sensuous appeal of her products is lost on the town mayor (Alfred Molina, who’s never been better), an uptight soul who believes she will undermine his authority. Johnny Depp, as an Irish riverboat gypsy, supplies a leading man of sorts, but Chocolat is really an ensemble film, and his contribution is no less important than those of Molina, Judi Dench (playing Binoche’s irascible landlady), and Lena Olin (as an abused wife who works in the shop). Director Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules) resists the temptation to make his film a full-blown allegory, but he also refuses to allow the story’s realistic elements to overshadow its mystical ones. Every bit as tasty a confection as the ones Binoche makes onscreen, Chocolat is smooth, sweet, and satisfying. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

The most tempting of all sweets becomes the key weapon in a battle of sensual pleasure versus disciplined self-denial in this comedy. In 1959, a mysterious woman named Vianne (Juliette Binoche) moves with her young daughter into a small French village, where much of the community's activities are dominated by the local Catholic church. A few days after settling into town, Vianne opens up a confectionery shop across the street from the house of worship -- shortly after the beginning of Lent. While the townspeople are supposed to be abstaining from worldly pleasures, Vianne tempts them with unusual and delicious chocolate creations, using her expert touch to create just the right candy to break down each customer's resistance. With every passing day, more and more of Vianne's neighbors are succumbing to her sinfully delicious treats, but the Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), the town's mayor, is not the least bit amused; he is eager to see Vianne run out of town before she leads the town into a deeper level of temptation. Vianne, however, is not to be swayed, and with the help of another new arrival in town, a handsome Irish Gypsy named Roux (Johnny Depp), she plans a "Grand Festival of Chocolate," to be held on Easter Sunday. Based on the novel by Joanne Harris, Chocolat features a distinguished supporting cast, including Judi Dench, Lena Olin, Carrie-Anne Moss, Peter Stormare, Hugh O'Conor, and Leslie Caron. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 786936145076
• Source: MIRAMAX
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français
• Subtitles: Español, English
• Time: 2:02:00
• Sales Rank: 2,097

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