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With movies like Chocolat, it's always best to relax your intellectual faculties and absorb the abundant sensual pleasures, be it the heart-stopping smile of chocolatier Juliette Binoche as she greets a new customer, an intoxicating cup of spiced hot cocoa, or the soothing guitar of an Irish gypsy played by Johnny Depp. Adapted by Robert Nelson Jacobs from Joanne Harris's popular novel and lovingly directed by Lasse Hallström, the film covers familiar territory and deals in broad metaphors that even a child could comprehend, so it's no surprise that some critics panned it with killjoy fervor. Their objections miss the point. Familiarity can be comforting and so can easy metaphors when placed in a fable that's as warmly inviting as this one. Driven by fate, Vianne (Binoche) drifts into a tranquil French village with her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol, from Ponette) in the winter of 1959. Her newly opened chocolatier is a source of attraction and fear, since Vianne's ability to revive the villagers' passions threatens to disrupt their repressive traditions. The pious mayor (Alfred Molina) sees Vianne as the enemy, and his war against her peaks with the arrival of "river rats" led by Roux (Depp), whose attraction to Vianne is immediate and reciprocal. Splendid subplots involve a battered wife (Lena Olin), a village elder (Judi Dench), and her estranged daughter (Carrie-Anne Moss), and while the film's broader strokes may be regrettable (if not for Molina's rich performance, the mayor would be a caricature), its subtleties are often sublime. Chocolat reminds you of life's simple pleasures and invites you to enjoy them. --Jeff Shannon
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- Armande Voizin: What's the décor? Early Mexican brothel? »
- Comte de Reynaud: Let me put this in perspective for you. The first Comte de Reynaud expelled all the radical Huguenots in this village. You and your truffles present a far lesser challenge. »
- Josephine: You don't misbehave here. It's just not done, did you know that? If you don't go to confession, if you don't... dig your flowerbeds, or if you don't pretend, if you don't pretend... that you want nothing more in your life than to serve your husband three meals a day, and give him children, and vacuum under his ass, then... then you're... then you're crazy. »
- Père Henri: I think we can't go around measuring our goodness by what we don't do - by what we deny ourselves, what we resist and who we exclude. I think we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create and who we include. »
- Roux: I'll come 'round sometime and get that squeak out of your door. »
- Roux: My favourite - hot chocolate. »
- Roux: Very good... but not my favorite. »
- Roux: You make friends with us, you make enemies with others. »
- Serge: We are still married, in the eyes of God.
Josephine: Then He must be blind. »
- Storyteller: Once upon a time there was a quiet little village in the French countryside - whose people believed in Tranquilité - Tranquility. »
- Vianne Rocher: What do you see? »
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