December 21–28, 2000

movie shorts

Chocolat

by Sam Adams

Lasse Hallström’s Cider House Rules encore is similarly overstuffed and unimaginative, a plummy art-house ham with all the trimmings. Set up as a fairly conventional sex comedy, the film takes place in a small French village where time has stood still: Though it’s the 1950s, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was a century earlier. Ruled by the priggish Comte de Reynaud (a delightfully crisp Alfred Molina), the sleepy hamlet of Lansquenet is invaded by the sensual Vianne (Juliette Binoche), whose chocolate shop becomes the catalyst for a series of sweeping changes. Josephine (Lena Olin) quits her abusive husband Serge (Peter Stormare) and the elderly libertine Armande (Judi Dench) clashes with her tightly-wound daughter Caroline (Carrie-Anne Moss). All this eventually provokes a "war between château and chocolatérie," with predictable if well-managed results. Binoche and Dench bring a certain zest to their predictable roles, and Johnny Depp makes a game appearance as a vagabond river-rat, but Chocolat is so eminently predictable you’re never truly involved. That same predictability will no doubt make it a big hit with audiences who swooned to Cider House and Shakespeare in Love.

See Sam’s interview with Lena Olin.

(Ritz 16)

See the trailer!