Chocolat

Chocolat (2000) is about a woman opening a chocolate shop in rural France at the start of Lent in the fifties. Vianne arrives with her daughter. She does not go to church, is not married, answers to nobody, and sells sweets in the middle of the fasting season. The mayor, the Comte de Reynaud, takes it as a direct attack on the order of the town. The story works like this: Vianne tries to persuade no one, simply keeps her door open, and the people the town does not speak to come in one by one. A woman beaten by her husband, a grandmother kept from her grandson, a man who cannot speak. Johnny Depp leads a group of river travellers and draws the town's most open hostility. It is adapted from Joanne Harris's novel. The best thing in it is the writing of the mayor. He is not a simple villain; he genuinely holds his faith, and the scene where he breaks is the peak of the film. Judi Dench, Alfred Molina and Lena Olin are in the cast. It was nominated for five Oscars including best picture, and those nominations caused argument; the production company's aggressive awards campaign was openly criticised in the industry at the time. A fairy tale narrator runs over it and the film makes no claim to realism. It runs 121 minutes. Good for: quiet drama, period film, and food. Less good for: the conflict is soft, the characters stay close to type, and the message is delivered very plainly.