Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I have been watching movies from September through November for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema.
This week we had a watch party for the movie Chocolat and we were the only two who showed up, but it was still fun.
We were hoping for at least one or two more people to join in but maybe next time around.
Chocolat is a movie from 2000 starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, and Alfred Molina, among others.
The plot of the movie is about Vianne Rocher, played by Binoche, who travels from town to town with her daughter, Anouk, never staying in one place because, she says, a type of curse was put on her family that causes the female members feel the need to travel to another place when the east wind blows.
This means the women in the families, are always on the move, rarely making long term connections with spouses or significant others, or really anyone.
Anouk, is becoming drained from the traveling and it’s clear she’s longing for a place to call home.
Friends are made somewhat slowly in the small town thanks to the iron-fisted rule of the mayor Comte de Reynaud (Molena) who is also in control of the church and uses religious guilt as a weapon against the people of the town. He is wealthy but is very lonely due to the fact his wife has gone to Venice and seems to have not come back.
Vianne opens her chocolate shop at the beginning of Lent, which is the time when Christians abstain from temptations, which sometimes include sweets, for about a 40-day period before Easter.
Vianne is not a Christian – in fact she’s probably more into Paganism — and is confused why Molina’s character is offended by her opening the shop. She also doesn’t really care that he is offended, if we want to be honest.
She wants to be welcomed with open arms but also seems to want to show that she is a free spirit who doesn’t care much about their traditions. She’s well-meaning, though, especially when it comes to wanting to changed the lives of a neglected wife, an abused wife, a grandmother who has been cut off from getting to know her grandson (Dench), and an older couple who simply need an extra push toward romance.
The movie is charming and shows the importance of accepting others who are different from you but also brings to light the dogmatic nature that can settle into organized religion.
Molina’s character thinks he controls everything even while he fights for control within himself. He tells the young priest at the church what to say and suggests that anyone who steps away from his will is also defying God.
The story becomes even more complex when Johnny Depp’s character, an Irish gypsy or “boat rat” shows up via his riverboat and faces the wrath of Comte de Reynaud who seems to see any outsider as a threat to the village.
Vianne feels a connection to Roux who is also an outcast in town and pretty much anywhere he goes.
Erin and I were chatting during this one so I shared with her that I felt someone like Colin Ferrell could have played Johnny’s part better than him. He was all the rage in the 1990s and early 2000s, I know, but he’s not actually Irish and I felt his accent sort of showed that. Ferrell is Irish and could have given the same type of smoldering looks that Johnny gave to Binoche.
I also shared with her during a scene where Johnny pretends to eat a worm that a classmate of mine in elementary school actually did eat a worm. My teacher was horrified and yelled, “Jeremy! You just ate a living thing! Go inside and think about what you’ve done!”
Chocolat was nominated for 35 different awards, but only won three.
It was nominated for five Academy Awards including best picture, actress (Binoche) and best supporting actress (Dench). It did not win any, sadly.
Directed by Lasse Halstrom the screenplay was written by Robert Nelson Jacobs and based on the book of the same name by Joanne Harris.
Halstrom said in an interview that one thing he really liked about the book was how complex Harris’s female characters were. They had a lot of layers and he wanted to make sure that was conveyed in the movie as well.
This movie is a favorite of mine because of all of the superb performances – especially Binoche, Molina, and Dench.
Have you seen this one? What did you think?
I’m leaving the trailer here for you in case you would like to watch it.
You can Erin’s impressions of the movie here:
With this movie, we have reached the end of our Comfy, Cozy Cinema for Autumn but will begin our link-ups for our Comfy, Cozy Christmas after Thanksgiving. As usual, these will be any posts related to the holiday season – books, movies, traditions, events, thoughts, analysis, etc. and you can post your links to the link up at any time during the month of December.
If you would like to share your review of this movie you can link to your post here:
