Chocolat, by (Penguin 2000). Movie directed by .
". . . being happy is the only important thing," Joanne Harris, Chocolat, (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), p. 172 . says Vianne Rocher, the buoyant and benevolent waltz-to-your-own-tune artist/chocolatier in Joanne Harris's fine novel Chocolat, on which the almost-as-fine film is based. When Vianne and her small daughter, wrapped in matching red coats, blow in on the cold north wind armed only with this philosophy and a secret recipe for chocolate 40 days before Easter, the melancholy lives of the villagers of the indifferent and hypocritical French town of Lansquenet begin to warm up and change.
A brutalized woman finds escape from domestic violence and renewed self-esteem. A long-standing feud involving a mother, daughter, and grandson is poignantly resolved. Other characters experience rejuvenation and emancipation from heartbreak, alienation, loneliness, hate. In the movie, a semimalevolent and powerful man whose wife has left him finds redemption and solace, and stops insisting on so much self-sacrifice from everybody else.
