Chocolat (2000)
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/DeLuxe 122m
Director: Lasse Hallström
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Lena Olin, Johnny Depp, Carrie-Anne Moss, John Wood, Peter Stormare, Leslie Caron
Synopsis:
A free-spirited, and atheistic, chocolatière and her illegitimate daughter arrive in a hidebound French town, incurring the righteous anger of its reactionary mayor. However, she wins over the locals with her apothecary's skill and Christian virtues.
Review:
A curiously outdated exercise, recalling the culinary epiphanies of Babette's Feast and Like Water for Chocolate, but frequently opting for the tone of Whisky Galore. The film's unevenness, mixing provincial comedy with dramatic scenes of arson and wife battery, is more blatant than in its director's equally serendipitous earlier films. This is perhaps because any effectiveness is diffused by having a familiar transatlantic cast play characters whose only validity can be their rugged continental authenticity.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/DeLuxe 122m
Director: Lasse Hallström
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Lena Olin, Johnny Depp, Carrie-Anne Moss, John Wood, Peter Stormare, Leslie Caron
Synopsis:
A free-spirited, and atheistic, chocolatière and her illegitimate daughter arrive in a hidebound French town, incurring the righteous anger of its reactionary mayor. However, she wins over the locals with her apothecary's skill and Christian virtues.
Review:
A curiously outdated exercise, recalling the culinary epiphanies of Babette's Feast and Like Water for Chocolate, but frequently opting for the tone of Whisky Galore. The film's unevenness, mixing provincial comedy with dramatic scenes of arson and wife battery, is more blatant than in its director's equally serendipitous earlier films. This is perhaps because any effectiveness is diffused by having a familiar transatlantic cast play characters whose only validity can be their rugged continental authenticity.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/DeLuxe 122m
Director: Lasse Hallström
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Lena Olin, Johnny Depp, Carrie-Anne Moss, John Wood, Peter Stormare, Leslie Caron
Synopsis:
A free-spirited, and atheistic, chocolatière and her illegitimate daughter arrive in a hidebound French town, incurring the righteous anger of its reactionary mayor. However, she wins over the locals with her apothecary's skill and Christian virtues.
Review:
A curiously outdated exercise, recalling the culinary epiphanies of Babette's Feast and Like Water for Chocolate, but frequently opting for the tone of Whisky Galore. The film's unevenness, mixing provincial comedy with dramatic scenes of arson and wife battery, is more blatant than in its director's equally serendipitous earlier films. This is perhaps because any effectiveness is diffused by having a familiar transatlantic cast play characters whose only validity can be their rugged continental authenticity.