In the book, Reynaud also gets a POV for some chapters and we hear his thoughts and musings as he talks to his comatose father. However, the type of magic used in the book would be really difficult to convey in film because it’s basically just another sense and she never talks about it with other characters.Īnother way in which the movie is a lot less dark than the book is through the character of Reynaud. A lot of the dark undertone of the book comes from Vianne’s struggle with her past, and that’s completely gone in the movie, that actual depth of human darkness and twistedness.īesides that, all of the magical realism (her ability to get an idea of people’s thoughts, is diminished to her uncanny ability to guess people’s favorite chocolat, which I thought was a bit of a shame. It makes for a less complex character, but it also makes the tone of the story much less dark. In the movie, she gets a romantic background, rather than the troubled past she has to struggle with in the book. She’s definitely less sure of herself, has more difficult emotions and struggles much more with her fears. Vianne is a much more realistic and much less romantic character in the book. Something that was also strangely different, were the two main characters, Vianne (the chocolat shop keeper) and Reynaud (the priest). Now I have to admit, I do get why they would make a choice like that, because that sense of stifling oppression from the church (which is a very present theme in the book) makes more sense (to a 2000s audience) if it’s set in the 50s than when it’s set in the 90s. The book is set in the 90s (I guess, because they talk about VHS tapes), but the movie is set in 1959.

The thing that surprised me most was that in adapting the story to a movie, they placed the plot in an entirely different decade.

Not just because it was a different medium, but the entire tone and setting had changed! But I had never read the book, so I thought it high time to do so and I was really, really surprised with how different it was from the movie. I’ve seen it and endless amount of times because it’s such a sweet and nice thing to watch when you’re feeling under the weather (which I am, quite often). This post may contain spoilers, for both the movie and the book! Be warned! (By the way, this is not really a review post, but more my rambling thoughts on the adaptation.)įirst of all, I need to mention that Chocolat is one of my favorite movies. Welcome to Film & Fiction, where we compare books to the movie adaptations even though we really shouldn’t! This time I’m going to talk about the book Chocolat by Joanne Harris (you can read my book review here) and the movie Chocolat (2000) directed by Lasse Hallström.

Chocolat harris