From the director of The Cider House Rules comes a brand new Oscar worthy film, Chocolat.
Chocolat, which starts screening tonight, November 29, 2000, for the press, is a masterful twist on a great fable.
According to The New York Post, this film is much more sophisticated than Cider House, and has depth where you don’t expect it.
The script, by Robert Nelson Jacobs, is adapted from Joanne Harris’s novel of the same name. Set in a northern French village (where it was filmed with much care), Chocolat tells what looks like the simple story of Viane, a mysterious woman who comes to town with her daughter and opens a chocolaterie. Of course, we all think we know what happens next, the villagers’ lives change. But Viane, played by Juliette Binoche, is too complex. In fact, her initial abrasiveness is a nice counterpoint to her beauty. And the result is that Hallstrِm is able to tell many smaller stories as he weaves the main action around Viane.
While Binoche is a cinch for a Best Actress nomination, there is a lot more going on here with the cast. Swedish actress Lena Olin, married to Hallstrِm in real life, has the secondary role of Josephine Muscat, a put-upon local housewife who comes to life under Viane’s instruction. Olin appears in few movies, but she made a splash in The Unbearable Lightness of Being opposite Binoche; their ease and friendship works wonders here. Dame Judi Dench is her usual curmudgeonly creampuff as Viane’s Bohemian landlady, and Alfred Molina shows off his subtleties as the town mayor who’s preaching religious values and restraint while suffering his wife’s permanent absence. All three of these players will make the Best Supporting categories.
ABC online also reported that there are some nice surprises too: Leslie Caron, makes a cameo appearance, very understated. Peter Stormare, known best as one of the killers from Fargo, is more complicated here as Olin’s husband. Carrie-Ann Moss, who’s usually battling sci-fi monsters, does her first bit of real acting as Dench’s stern daughter.
Hallstrِm’s career began with My Life as A Dog and took off in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Both films had children.
Chocolat opens December 15th. – Albawaba.com.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
