---
title: "Chocolat"
year: 2000
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/chocolat"
fi1m_score: 60
critics_score: 61
critics_reviews: 10
published: "2026-09-20T07:02:28.283300+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-20T07:02:28.728536+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Chocolat (2000)

Directed by Lasse Hallström · 2h 01m · MPA PG-13 · Comedy, Drama, Romance

**Fi1m score: 60** · Critics 61 from 10 reviews

*In a sentence:* Every ailment in the village has a truffle for it, and every truffle works

> Lasse Hallström’s village fable is handsomely made and warmly acted, with Alfred Molina and Judi Dench doing far better work than the script requires. It argues that pleasure is good and self-denial bad, to an audience that arrived already agreeing.

## Synopsis

Lansquenet, a walled French village, in the Lent of 1959. Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) arrives on the north wind with her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol), rents a derelict shop from the sharp-tongued landlady Armande Voizin (Judi Dench) and opens a chocolaterie opposite the church, six weeks before Easter. Count Paul de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), the mayor, writes the young Father Henri’s (Hugh O’Conor) sermons, expects the village to fast, and sets out to close her down. Vianne guesses each customer’s favourite from a spinning plate: the widower Guillaume Blerot (John Wood), who pines for Mrs. Audel (Leslie Caron), and Josephine Muscat (Lena Olin), who steals from the counter and goes home to a husband, Serge (Peter Stormare), who hits her. Armande, meanwhile, is forbidden by her daughter Caroline Clairmont (Carrie-Anne Moss) from seeing her grandson Luc.

## Review

Lasse Hallström, working from Joanne Harris’s novel in a screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs, has made a fable and says so at the start: a narrator, an old story, a village where nothing has changed for a long time. A woman opens a chocolate shop during Lent and the village, having been told for centuries that wanting things is a sin, begins to want things. That is the whole argument, and the film has made it inside twenty minutes. The remaining hundred are spent confirming it, one customer at a time.

Alfred Molina is the reason to watch. His Reynaud is not a villain but a man who has decided that starving himself is a form of love, and Molina plays the starving: the tightened jaw at the shop window, the meals he does not eat, the sermons he writes for the boyish Father Henri (Hugh O’Conor) and then sits through from the front pew. The film wants us to laugh at him and Molina declines to make that easy. Whenever he is on screen the fable has an opponent worth the name.

Judi Dench does what she does with a grouchy old woman and a bottle, which is to make her the most alive person on screen. Armande’s quarrel with her daughter Caroline Clairmont (Carrie-Anne Moss) over the grandson she is not allowed to see is one of two strands with any weight. The other is Lena Olin’s Josephine, married to Peter Stormare’s Serge, who drinks and hits her. We were more moved than we had any intention of being by Olin: the way Josephine holds her handbag with both hands as if someone might take it, and the moment she first laughs in the shop and looks round to see who heard. Nothing in the script asks for that. Olin brings it anyway.

Juliette Binoche is serene and lovely and, as written, a saint with a spatula. Vianne has a trick with a spinning plate that tells her what each customer secretly craves, and she is right every time, which is a problem for a story. Nobody she helps is made worse by it. Johnny Depp arrives as Roux, the river traveller, with a guitar and an accent from somewhere a long way west of the village, and the film tells us the two of them are in love and then does little to show it. They stand near each other in firelight and the matter is considered settled.

It is beautifully done. Roger Pratt shoots the village in slate greys and browns and lets the shop glow amber against them, so the chocolaterie looks like the one lit window on a cold street. David Gropman’s shop is a real place, copper pans and cocoa dust and a counter you could lean on; his village, though, is a picture book, with no mud, no poverty and a 1959 that seems never to have heard of a war. Renee Ehrlich Kalfus puts Vianne in colours the rest of the cast has been denied, in case we had missed the point. Rachel Portman’s score is pretty and never stops; every tender moment gets the same rising strings, so that by the hour mark we knew what we were meant to feel a bar before the picture told us. Andrew Mondshein cuts the eating in close-ups of mouths and melting, which is effective the first six times.

The trouble is that the film has no doubt. Jacobs’s script has decided that nobody in Lansquenet is wicked, only mistaken, and that a mistake is cured by a good ganache. Every problem in the village turns out to have a confection that fits it. A fable is allowed to be simple, but *Babette’s Feast* was simple and still let its Lutherans keep their dignity to the end. Here the case for pleasure is put to people who have bought a ticket to a film called *Chocolat*, and it is not a hard case to win.

At 121 minutes it is a long dessert, and it carries a 12. Watch it on a cold evening with someone who will not want to argue about it afterwards, and it will do what it sets out to do, which is to make you feel kindly for two hours and then hungry. Ask it anything harder and only Molina seems to have heard the question.

*Fi1m score 60, published 20 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics find Chocolat an agreeable fable, and half of them like it a good deal more than that. The praise clusters on the cast. Juliette Binoche is named in most reviews as the film’s calm centre, Alfred Molina’s mayor is repeatedly singled out, and Judi Dench’s landlady draws notice too. Lasse Hallström’s direction is described as light and assured, and the warmer reviews credit him with making something more substantial than the sugary premise suggests.

The spread is wide. The reservations all point the same way: it is too soft, too sweet and too eager to please, with little real conflict and a feel-good ending that some find patronising. The Guardian is the harshest, arguing that not even Binoche can save it, and the Evening Standard says the film blunts the sharper edges of the novel. Time Out adds that the period setting seals the story off from any present-day bite.

### Reviews we read (10)

- **Los Angeles Times**, Kevin Thomas (90/100, inferred): The critic hails it as a delectable yet spiritually nourishing humanist fable with wide appeal. Hallström's subtle direction and the cast's glowing performances, especially Binoche and Molina, are singled out for praise. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-dec-15-ca-179-story.html)
- **Variety**, Lael Loewenstein (85/100, inferred): The review describes it as a richly textured comic fable blending Old World wisdom with timely commentary on moral superiority. It praises Hallström's observations on the human spirit and the exquisite production values. [Read](https://variety.com/2000/film/reviews/chocolat-2-1200465964/)
- **Empire**, Kim Newman (80/100, inferred): Lasse Hallström brings a delicate touch to this blend of comedy, soap, romance and magic that feels like a souffle but turns out more substantial. It is a treat and a rare showcase for Binoche, though with the minor cavil of players speaking English with slight French accents. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/chocolat-review/)
- **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (80/100, inferred): The critic sees the film as a charming fable pitting pagan sensuality against rigid Christianity, with chocolate as the winning force. Binoche is singled out as a serene, wise presence who embodies the story's life-affirming spirit. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/chocolat-2000)
- **The New York Times**, Elvis Mitchell (60/100, inferred): The review calls it a crowd-pleasing but manipulative confection, an art-house film for those who dislike art-house films. It praises the assured direction and strong ensemble performances, especially Molina and Depp. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/15/movies/film-review-candy-power-comes-to-town.html)
- **Time Out**, WH (55/100, inferred): Hallström's soft adaptation constructs a feminist parable about courage, support and pleasure in personal transformation, with excellent performances. However, their relevance is diminished by the historical bubble in which they are situated, with the period cinematography preserving the whole in aspic. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/chocolat-1)
- **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (40/100, inferred): The critic finds Lasse Hallström's fable-like story of a chocolate shop disrupting a conservative French village overly sweet and lacking depth or conflict. While acknowledging the charm of its cast and progressive themes, the review criticizes its heavy-handed magic realism and emotional generosity as making the film insubstantial. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/chocolat-1798192563)
- **Evening Standard** (30/100, inferred): Some audiences will like this soft-centred, simplistic pseudo-French fable better than the critic did; it is a predigested exercise in genteel nostalgia that neuters the source novel's sharper edges and reduces food to mere bon-bons rather than a transfigured sacrament. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/spoonful-of-sugar-for-chocoholics-7433753.html)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (25/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a gooey, sickly-sweet confection that even Juliette Binoche cannot redeem, comparing it unfavourably to a Thornton's factory and criticising its patronising feelgood ethos and Depp's performance. Binoche's grace and beauty are singled out for praise amid the complaints about the film's ickiness and smugness. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/mar/02/1)
- **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (70/100, inferred): The critic describes it as a fairy story about a woman who provides a breath of fresh air to a small French town. Praises supporting performances like Alfred Molina as the mayor and Judi Dench as a grouchy landlady who learns to let go, while noting Juliette Binoche's character is more sentimental than exacting. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?film_id=2680)

## Details

- **Director:** Lasse Hallström
- **Director:** Lasse Hallström
- **Screenplay:** Robert Nelson Jacobs
- **Novel:** Joanne Harris
- **Cinematography:** Roger Pratt
- **Editor:** Andrew Mondshein
- **Music:** Rachel Portman
- **Production design:** David Gropman
- **Costume design:** Renee Ehrlich Kalfus
- **Producer:** David Brown, Leslie Holleran, Mark Cooper
- **Cast:** Juliette Binoche as Vianne Rocher; Judi Dench as Armande Voizin; Alfred Molina as Count Paul de Reynaud; Lena Olin as Josephine Muscat; Johnny Depp as Roux; Hugh O'Conor as Father Henri; Carrie-Anne Moss as Caroline Clairmont; John Wood as Guillaume Blerot
- **Runtime:** 2h 01m
- **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13
- **Release (the US):** 19 January 2001
- **Genres:** Comedy, Drama, Romance
- **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Nominee, 2000); [Golden Globe Best Musical or Comedy winners](https://film.one/collections/golden-globe-comedy.md) (Nominee, 2000)
- **Budget:** $25 million
- **Box office:** $153 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=692hOJq1KJE

## Where to watch in the US

- Paramount+: streaming, hd
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd

*Checked 2026-09-20.*

Also available in: AT, AU, BG, CA, CH, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HU, ID, IE, IT, LT, MY, NO, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 2001: Best Actress (nominated); Best Original Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Supporting Actress (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated)
- European Film Award - People's Choice Award for Best Director 2001: European Film Award - People's Choice Award for Best Director (nominated)
- Jameson People's Choice Award for Best Actress 2001: Jameson People's Choice Award for Best Actress (won)

## If you liked this

- *Babette's Feast* (1987): One dinner, a Danish village of Lutherans, and pleasure argued with far more patience.
- *Like Water for Chocolate* (1992): Mexican magic realism where the cooking carries real grief, not just comfort.
- *Tampopo* (1985): A Japanese comedy about noodles that takes eating more seriously than most dramas.
- *Amélie* (2001), Fi1m 82: Another kindly meddler in a storybook France, with sharper jokes and better colour. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/amelie.md)
- *Big Night* (1996), Fi1m 84: Two brothers, one restaurant, one meal; food as pride rather than medicine. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/big-night.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/chocolat