Matcollis
This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.
AniInterview
Sorry, this movie sucks
Robert Joyner
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
Freeman
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
humni
I think it is very interesting this movie is called a thriller. It is anything but thrilling.Most of the time you hear piano sounds. Then you hear piano sounds. Then some people talk about facts which do not concern anybody.Then again piano sounds.To be honest, this movie was the reason for me to register at IMDb, because I think this movie is one of those which humankind has to be warned of.Spoiler: By the way, the most action-like part happens when a can of hot chocolate is spilled.Also very interesting: The "actors". Yes, the quotes are intentional, as you can think, because they do not act. They play piano and do smalltalk, but it's not acting they do.I think before this movie I never left a cinema and felt angry. Really, this film made me angry. Angry for the time and money I spent on it.
robert-642
The French either make pro-Marxist films or anti-Marxist films - with a few in between. "Merci pour le chocolat" is the latter of this genre. From the opening credits telling the viewer what music is going to be played and by whom it was who composed you know that you are going to be swathed in middle class pretension. It is an old man's film with an excess of 40's plus people. It is also directed by an old man along with an old crew who have nothing to say about life to the viewer. The plot is not only banal but preposterous. How many films reveal the plot through dialogue only to repeat the same message via flashback some five minutes later? Maybe the director and actors had a low retentive capacity? In truth their is no tenable plot at all. It is riddle with holes like a good piece of French cheese.Whether intentional or not, it is a film about the bourgeoisie. At least a third of the film focuses on the piano and the pretentious twaddle espoused in each scene. I concede it has some well framed shots though they couldn't have used a steady-cam in this film - it would have woke them all up! Other than it being a nonsense story, the film allows the upper middle class to parade their values and vanity in a very comfortable Swiss location. A telling line of the film is when Rodolphe Pauly tells Anna Mouglalis that she need not lock her car while in the resort! Oh dear me.On the DVD, Miss Huppert makes a comment about shedding a false tear for a scene. Smirking she says: "Like they do in the American Actor's Studio!" I think Miss Huppert and the rest of the cast could learn well from the Actor's Studio.If there is one statement that stand out in my mind it is when Huppert remarks 'we are having friends for the weekend and all the servants are away'. No doubt they had all escaped from the mind numbing set lest they be associated with such an appalling film.Safety Medical Note. In the film they show a hot water scald being covered with ointment and a bandage. This should never be done. Only cold water should be used.Minus 10 marks.
Lars Ericson
Anna Mouglalis is HOT. And she's the main character. So why doesn't her name appear on the DVD box along with Jacques Dutronc and Isabelle Huppert? Don't they have enough already?I've seen other pictures of her on the Net and she doesn't look exactly like Liv Tyler, but in this movie, the way her hair is done and her lipstick applied, they could be twins separated at birth.Oh, and what about the movie?Well, I saw it with four other people. In keeping with the theme of the movie, which has a lot to do with hot chocolate and getting a good night's sleep, two of the four fell asleep after the first twenty minutes or so. The other person and I (both Francophiles, and I now a convinced Mouglalis-o-phile), managed to watch the whole thing, which wasn't easy, because, well....the acting kind of sucked, the people were all boring and unlikable, and the plot was salvaged from the reject bins behind the office where they write Murder, She Wrote, episodes of Columbo, and those Masterpiece Theater episodes set in the 1920's. Boring boring boring. And contrived. And unbelievable. Too many coincidences, and once you see the movie, you'll find it hard to believe that main character A married main character B, and you'll find it hard to believe that main character A, a driven over-achiever who surely must be exhausted with all the work he does, would have troubles sleeping and would have such little sex drive that he would want to get into a permanent hookup with main character B, whom he's been with before and didn't like the first time. That is, there is not enough shown about his character to make these choices even remotely plausible.But to know who A and B are, you'll have to go see the movie. So go see it, and have a good time!
petteri-kalliomaki
Like all thrillers made by Claude Chabrol during the last decade, this is quite well-made and intensive film. It is nearly perfect except for one thing: it is not fresh. Unlike new films made by Chabrol's Cahiers du Cinema -colleague Jean-Luc Godard, this takes no risks, nor does it surprise. Unlike Godard, Chabrol has became a tame artists since the days of the New Wave.Still, this is a very entertaining and professional film, worth watching once or even twice. And surely at its best on the big screen, on television the intensity of the film will never come through.