Getting the story right. Chocolat: the movie and the novel

The movie Chocolat (script written by Robert Nelson Jacobs, directed by Lasse Hallstrom, and starring Juliette Binoche) beautifully and brilliantly retells the story of Chocolat the novel by Joanne Harris.

This is one of those rare and wonderful instances where the movie is far better the book it is based on. (Others include The English Patient and Field of Dreams).

It feels like the creative team for the movie understood the heart of the story and then set out to tell it afresh, learning from and building from the book, but telling it in a way that got to its essence, which the book had failed to do. Like Phidias, they saw what was possible in the raw material in front of them, and they succeeded in making it visible to their audience.

Some movies based on novels capitalize on the title and tell a different story, often tailored to showcase a mega-star. Others fail because they attempt to stay faithful to the full range of the original, and the story gets lost in all the detail (like Snow Falling on Cedars or the recent made-for-TV remake of Dune). Still others fail by presenting just one storyline of a book that was rich and varied (like Cider House Rules, where the script was written by the novel's author, John Irving).

In this case, the movie feels more rich and varied than the original -- introducing us to about a dozen interesting characters, and believably showing them all grow and change, without losing focus.

The changes to the basic story were bold and extremely effective. In the novel, the priest was the diabolical antagonist at the center of the story. In the movie, the priest is a rookie, well-meaning, vulnerable, and at the mercy of the mayor, who plays the role of antagonist, without being diabolical.

In the book, the church and religion are the enemy. In the movie, the enemy is a cold misinterpretation of religion, which can be "cured" by the realization that God is love.

In the book, the priest is unredeemably evil. In the movie, the mayor has a kind heart under his cold, controlling exterior.

The movie has a lighter, more subtle touch. For instance, in the book, at the climax, the priest is totally humiliated, discovered in the window of the chocolaterie by the entire town. But in the movie, it is the mayor who falls victim to temptation and is found in the window by Vianne and seen only by her and the priest, who keep his secret for him.

While shifting the center of the story, the movie also makes the characters richer, more understandable, and more interesting, for instance, providing Vianne with an exotic ancestry and past (tied to the semi-magical properties of her chocolate), and providing the mayor with a wife who has abandoned him. In the book, Armande is wealthy, and her daughter and son-in-law want to move her to an old folks home, in part, to get control of her money. In the movie, her daughter is a widow (with a suppressed romantic interest in the mayor), and concern for her mother's health is her clear motivation (with no hint of money). In the book, Vianne helps Josephine get away from her husband, but in the movie Josephine also becomes an apprentice, learning everything about the making of chocolate, and then teaching others in the town. Repeatedly, with very few words and very eloquent images, the movie introduces us to interesting and quirky characters and couples (composites of characters in the book, or new characters in the same vein as those in the book) -- telling volumes about their motivation, their frustration, their attempts at self-control, and their delight at surrendering to innocent temptation and finally enjoying the small pleasures of life, with exchanged looks and smiles.

When a story is retold so well, we get a glimpse of how stories were sometimes improved in the retelling in the days of oral tradition, passed on from generation to generation by professional bards. We get a sense of how a good story can become even better when seen through the eyes and felt in the guts of a new and powerful bard, who does not feel constrained to merely repeat what has come before. We remember that Shakespeare was mainly a reteller of tales that others had told before (and in that sense was a true "bard"). And we are delighted that that tradition of true creative retelling can continue in the cinema.
 

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