Chocolat (2000)
Starring Juliette Binoche, Alfred Molina, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Leslie Caron, Carrie-Anne Moss, Aurelien Parent Koenig, Lena Olin, Peter Stormare, John Wood, Antonio Gil, Hélène Cardona, Hugh O'Conor, Victoire Thivisol, Gaelan Connell, Élisabeth Commelin, Ron Cook, Michèle Gleizer, Christianne Oliveira, Guillaume Tardieu, Harrison Pratt, Marion Hauducoeur
IHBM8Very good
A fable of emotional liberation and chocolate. A mother and daughter move to a small French town where they open a chocolate shop. The town, religious and morally strict, is against them as they represent free-thinking and indulgence. When a group of Boat Gypsies float down the river the prejudices of the Mayor leads to a crisis.
My review · Reviewed 02/13/2021
What I liked most about this movie is that it didn't beat the viewer over the head with its message. In her struggle to try to win over the hearts and minds of the town's people the main character maintained a degree of grace and patience. The movie was made twenty years before this review but I suspect that the struggle against those that wish to tell us how to live our lives and what is moral has always been going on. The struggle isn't only with other people, it is about the expectations that we put on ourselves. I especially liked the scene toward the end of the movie where the lead broke free of an unspoken shackle that had been placed upon her life (as Woody Allen once said, "tradition is the illusion of permanence").