Chocolat (2000)

I just finished reading the book, which was rather fascinating, and thought, "How on earth are they going to translate it to film?" Well, they did, and they did an okay job with it, except for the fact that it became a blatant morality tale about tolerance. The book at least tried to be subtle about it. The movie had a 30-second SERMON about it, for pete's sakes. (Worse still, it scoffed at the idea that one can be tolerant if you have religious ideals that don't make sense to other people. Isn't that slightly defeating the point of tolerance?)

HOWEVER, aside from that, it was a pretty interesting story, and I was actually quite impressed with the way that they handled the chocolate in the film. That sounds bizarre, but that was one of the things I was worried about. In the book, so much was about feeling things you couldn't easily portray on film. For the most part, that transition worked. 2.5 stars.