Storyline for 'Chocolat':
1960, small town France. Vianne Rocher and her pre-teen daughter move into town and open a chocolate shop just as lent is beginning. The town's small-minded mayor can't accept this and does his best to shut her down, but her warm personality and incredible chocolates manage to win over many townsfolk. Things get shaken up even more when a group of river drifters, led by Roux, stop into town (to the even greater distress of the mayor) and Vianne takes up with him. Meanwhile, she's been helping Josephine out of her abusive marriage and her equally freethinking landlord, Amande Voisin, get together with her grandson, Luc, whose mother doesn't approve of Amande's ways. | An iconoclastic single mother (Oscar-nominee Juliette Binoche) and her young daughter move to a village in France and open a chocolate shop - that's open Sundays - across the street from a church. At first, Binoche's rich, sensuous desserts scandalize the town, but soon the villagers welcome the newcomers with open arms. Judi Dench, Lena Olin and Johnny Depp co-star in this 2000 Best Picture nominee. | With movies like Chocolat, it's always best to relax your intellectual faculties and absorb the abundant sensual pleasures, be it the heart-stopping smile of chocolatier Juliette Binoche as she greets a new customer, an intoxicating cup of spiced hot cocoa, or the soothing guitar of an Irish gypsy played by Johnny Depp. Adapted by Robert Nelson Jacobs from Joanne Harris's popular novel and lovingly directed by Lasse Hallstrom, the film covers familiar territory and deals in broad metaphors that even a child could comprehend, so it's no surprise that some critics panned it with killjoy fervor. Their objections miss the point. Familiarity can be comforting and so can easy metaphors when placed in a fable that's as warmly inviting as this one. Driven by fate, Vianne (Binoche) drifts into a tranquil French village with her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol, from Ponette) in the winter of 1959. Her newly opened chocolatier is a source of attraction and fear, since Vianne's ability to revive the villagers' passions threatens to disrupt their repressive traditions. The pious mayor (Alfred Molina) sees Vianne as the enemy, and his war against her peaks with the arrival of "river rats" led by Roux (Depp), whose attraction to Vianne is immediate and reciprocal. Splendid subplots involve a battered wife (Lena Olin), a village elder (Judi Dench), and her estranged daughter (Carrie-Anne Moss), and while the film's broader strokes may be regrettable (if not for Molina's rich performance, the mayor would be a caricature), its subtleties are often sublime. Chocolat reminds you of life's simple pleasures and invites you to enjoy them.
