Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc, Anna Mouglalis, Rodolphe Pauly, Brigitte Catillon

A mystery set in the environs of Lausanne concerning several plots which wind their way through the elegant homesteads of a couple of well-heeled French-Swiss denizens. Mika is the couture-attired, oh...( read more  read more... )-so-perfect head of Muller Chocolates--a company that manufactures Swiss chocolates. Andre is her suave, concert pianist husband whose first wife died years ago in a mysterious car accident. When Jeanne, a beautiful young woman, enters the home of Mika and Andre, raising questions about her possible relationship to the family, tensions mount, alliances shift, and all the while, Mika prepares and faithfully serves her special recipe for hot chocolate each evening.

Flixster Users

64% liked it

2,115 ratings

Critics

84% liked it

49 critics

R, 1 hr. 39 min.

Directed by: Claude Chabrol

Release Date: October 25, 2000

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DVD Release Date: April 22, 2003

Stats: 89 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (89)


  • July 17, 2009
    A somewhat average thriller from Chabrol. It starts out well enough, but losses it towards the end and ultimately leaves too many questions unanswered. However despite it's weaknesses it's always worthwhile watching Huppert and at least you get to listen to Liszt's 'Funerailles' ...( read more)pretty much throughout the film.
  • April 14, 2009
    A film which starts, you imagine, as a nice French / Swiss comedy of manners as a rich, talented couple remarry after a separation of some twenty years or so. She is the owner of company which makes legendary drinking chocolate. He, André, is a concert pianist. They appear blissf...( read more)ully happy - she, Mika, had remained friends with his in-between wife, had comforted him after her tragic death, and had readily assumed the role of mother to his teenage son, Guillaume. Bliss.

    Enter a young music student, a tall elegantly beautiful young woman, Jeanne, who dreams of being a concert pianist. She learns from her mother that there had been mix-up at the hospital the night she was born, the famous concert pianist believing for a time that she was his child.

    She sets out to visit the pianist - with all the potential for dramatic (or even comic) tension as the happy families are torn apart. What she uncovers is the nature of evil. Mika, so sweet and helpful and caring, has a pathological disregard for others. She manipulates - with her wealth, her beauty, her charm, her sweetness, or any other weapon she can find.

    This is a beautifully made film. Isabelle Huppert and Anna Mougalis are outstanding. As an exploration of evil, it has great quality. But it is a film which doesn't really work. You can see where the story is going, you can enjoy the building tension, but ultimately the conclusion feels a bit tame. Except, Mika sheds a tear for her loss. Her husband does not. You wonder if he is so anaesthetised to any emotion other than the ones he experiences through music that he must share complicity in her crimes. He is so absorbed in his own self-importance as maestro, he simply fails to engage in the world around him. The pair are, indeed, suited to one another, but which one is most responsible for her crimes?

    Claude Chabrol (Isabelle Huppert's husband) regularly makes liberal use of music in his films and this one is no exception. The direction of the piece echoes the changing mood of a concerto. The visuals are always elegant. And he celebrates his actors, particularly the female ones. This is an enjoyable film, and one which benefits from the 'making of' documentary and interview with Huppert which are offered as extras, but it is not Chabrol's best. A film to be enjoyed more for the quality of its acting than for its narrative satisfaction.
  • October 5, 2007
    omg what a piece of crap
  • July 5, 2007
    all the movies I've seen with isabelle hupert cast her as somewhat psychotic and this one is no different. she makes her famous hot chocolate and gives it to those she envies...
  • June 29, 2007
    another french movie
  • October 14, 2006
    For Isabelle Huppert's sake, I tried, I really did.
  • July 31, 2006
    isabelle hupert à son meilleur, la jeune pianiste également, il ne faut pas se fier aux apparences, popurtant dans se film, si!
  • April 3, 2006
    Isabelle Huppert, perfect as always.

Critic Reviews


October 18, 2002
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

It's enough to watch Huppert scheming, with her small, intelligent eyes as steady as any noir villain, and to enjoy the perfectly pitched web of tension that Chabrol spins. full review

August 23, 2002
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Huppert has the best poker face since Buster Keaton. She faces the camera with detached regard, inviting us to imagine what she is thinking. full review

View more Merci Pour le Chocolat reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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