jotix100
Claude Chabrol, a man that has distinguished himself for showing the nasty things people do one another, is at it again. Although "Merci pour le chocolat" is not one of his best contributions to the genre, it has a subtlety that shows he is was still up to his tricks when he made this movie.Mika Muller, was married briefly to the man she now calls her husband, the weary-eyed Andre Polonsky, a talented pianist. Mika loves to prepare chocolate, a specialty she has known well, being as she is, connected to the industry. She also loves to lace her brews with a substance that will induce sleeping to whoever she wants to get rid of. Andre's second wife suffered a fatal accident after drinking the chocolate Mika prepared for her, and got her and Andre back together again.Mika gets a dislike for Jeanne Pollet, a piano student, who suspects that Andre is her father. This theory is the result of the revelation that Jeanne's mother tells her about having been switched momentarily at birth with Axel, the son of Andre and his late wife. In fact, Jeanne sees a possibility in her theory because, like Andre, she has a passion for the piano, while Axel shows no interest. The best thing in the film is Isabelle Huppert, who makes another one of her memorable screen characters come alive. One can see in her face the emotions Mika is experiencing. This actress gives a seamless performance about the evil woman who has gone above and beyond to destroy lives. Anna Mouglalis also made an impression as Jeanne, the young woman who solves the puzzle and is, at the same time, an almost victim of the possessed Mika. Jacques Dutronc plays Andre.Another interesting Claude Chabrol film that will please his fans.
Glenn Andreiev
Sometimes a comedic story idea could make for an emotionally engrossing thriller instead. Such is the case with MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT. Chabrol turns what would be a situation comedy plot into a compelling thriller about failed relationships. A respected pianist Andre Polonski (Jacques Dutronc) figures that a maternity ward mishap caused him and his wife, Marie (Isabelle Hubbert) a chocolate manufacturer, to raise the wrong child. Their college age `son', Guillaume, actually belongs to somebody else. Andre's real child seems to be Jeanne, (Anna Maoglalis) a lovely piano student. Jeanne and her boyfriend, a medical lab intern, are trying to figure out what poison will do some undetected dirty work (Chabrol originally studied to be a pharmacist) Chabrol started his career in the 1950's co-authoring well respected essays on Alfred Hitchcock with fellow countryman and future director Eric Rohmer. Unlike DePalma with his very obvious `Hey, hey look, what Hitchcock film is my scene copied from?' Chabrol wisely keeps his Hitchcock copying to a minimum with subtle Hitchcock styled camera movement. Instead of celebrating `technical innovation', Chabrol uses his camera to keep us gazing at the film's characters.
Lars Ericson
Anna Mouglalis is HOT. And she's the main character. So why doesn't her name appear on the DVD box along with Jacques Dutronc and Isabelle Huppert? Don't they have enough already?I've seen other pictures of her on the Net and she doesn't look exactly like Liv Tyler, but in this movie, the way her hair is done and her lipstick applied, they could be twins separated at birth.Oh, and what about the movie?Well, I saw it with four other people. In keeping with the theme of the movie, which has a lot to do with hot chocolate and getting a good night's sleep, two of the four fell asleep after the first twenty minutes or so. The other person and I (both Francophiles, and I now a convinced Mouglalis-o-phile), managed to watch the whole thing, which wasn't easy, because, well....the acting kind of sucked, the people were all boring and unlikable, and the plot was salvaged from the reject bins behind the office where they write Murder, She Wrote, episodes of Columbo, and those Masterpiece Theater episodes set in the 1920's. Boring boring boring. And contrived. And unbelievable. Too many coincidences, and once you see the movie, you'll find it hard to believe that main character A married main character B, and you'll find it hard to believe that main character A, a driven over-achiever who surely must be exhausted with all the work he does, would have troubles sleeping and would have such little sex drive that he would want to get into a permanent hookup with main character B, whom he's been with before and didn't like the first time. That is, there is not enough shown about his character to make these choices even remotely plausible.But to know who A and B are, you'll have to go see the movie. So go see it, and have a good time!
Framescourer
Saw this one in an empty cinema on 12th st, NY city last sept. I'd been really looking forward to it; alas this last Chabrol/Huppert cocktail was a real disappointment.The plot centres around a Chabrol favourite, a psychologically anaomalous lead character who changes the otherwise even-keeled bourgeois status quo. But Huppert is (bored!?) too wooden and the editing holds up frames which should be dropped, suggesting a suspense and portence which the acting doesn't give.There is a sinister note to the plot and the acting that executes it, but everything falls flat scene by scene. Watch the film perhaps for Anna Mouglalis' pleasant but iconoclastic Jeanne who is the true gypsy heart amongst the otherwise uninterested and uninteresting cast. 3/10, really.
AD
