Chocolat (Lasse Hallström, 2000)

Chances are that if you were in the market for this, you'll have seen it already, seeing as it has chick-flick stamped so solidly through it as a stick of Blackpool rock. Not that any adaptation of a novel by the superlatively imaginative Joanne Harris should be dismissed out of hand as serving only that market.
The basic structure of the source material has survived in the film version: Vianne Rocher, with precocious daughter in tow, causes turmoil on arrival in a tight-lippedly conservative French town little adapted to the post-war world with her sensuous confections and forthright interventions, soon leading to the mayor plotting to have her sent packing. The allusions to the conflict between church and atheism/paganism are still there too, and the main characters are well served by dependable casting, from Juliette Binoche to Judi Dench, Alfred Molina as the scheming mayor and Johnny Depp in a vanity cameo as a roguish traveller and Vianne's love interest.
But Hallström's film fails on one critical count: it's too flat to convey the magic of the bewitching chocolatier's alchemy, and so the ecstatic conversions she brings about in the repressed villagers just come across as instances of ludicrous gluttony whereas it should be apparent that there's real witchcraft at work. It's all perfectly charming and light, but leaves too sugary an aftertaste. Something more along the lines of Tom Tykwer's painstaking working of Perfume was called for.

6/10