Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I are back to watching and sharing about comfy cozy (and sometimes, chilling) movies for the fall season. Feel free to join in with us!! Our link will be live for a whole week after we post about a movie. 

And actually, this was our grand finale! It has been a very fun run of movies, from all different genres and decades, and a few other bloggers joining us as well, which was awesome! We even had a comfy cozy care package giveaway that we kept adding and adding to and eventually I needed to get a bigger box to send it all off in. I really have had a fantastic time, and I appreciate everyone who has participated or commented on our posts!

For the last time this year, this week’s movie is Chocolat, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, and of course, Dame Judi Dench.

I thought this would be a fun one to end the season of Comfy Cozy Cinema on. Decadent, dreamy, a happy ending (well sort of?) AND a good excuse to eat chocolate while watching. Not that I need an excuse but it was a good one anyway. We wanted a party like atmosphere, full of camaraderie and chit chat, and even though the only people who came to the watch party were Lisa and I (which is fine, life gets busy!) we had all of these things. So much so that I didn’t watch the movie as carefully as normal. I was too busy sending comments back and forth with Lisa!

Plot summary: “When mysterious Vianne and her child arrive in a tranquil French town in the winter of 1959, no one could have imagined the impact that she and her spirited daughter would have on the community stubbornly rooted in tradition. Within days, she opens an unusual chocolate shop, across the square from the church. Her ability to perceive her customers’ desires and satisfy them with just the right confection, coaxes the villagers to abandon themselves to temptation — just as Lent begins.”

We met on discord at about 6:45, stocked up with our snacks. I had chocolate and popcorn, and a glass of red wine and Lisa had hot chocolate and french fries. I was all bundled up in my bed and for the first 45 minutes or so, it was just me in my bed watching the movie and snacking and chatting. After the first 45 minutes though, my guys decided to watch too.

Lisa and I both agreed that Juliette Binoche’s wardrobe as Vianne was gorgeous.

This is when Vianne had just literally blown into town with her daugher Anouk, on the clever north wind. She sets up her chocolaterie under the watchful eye of the townsfolk, who seem to live their repressed lives under the watchful eye of the Count, or Judgy mustache, as I called him. Judi Dench however, is not as cowed as the rest of the townspeople by the Count, or her daughter or the opinions of her neighbors, and lives like she wants, even if it is very bad for her health. Vianne discovers that Armande (Dench) is estranged from her family, and sets up meetings in her shop between Armande and her grandson Luc. Vianne seems to collect all of the outsiders, including Josephine, a woman who is in an abusive marriage and resorts to stealing things out of her despair. Vianne takes her under her wing and gives her purpose and self-confidence, and a way to get away from her husband. The Count however, tries to take her abusive husband under his wing and reform him.. and you will have to watch to see if he succeeds.

However, the worst transgression she makes of all is befriending Roux, who lives on the river and travels around with his family and friends. His kind are riffraff and not accepted into the very proper and staid town. The Count ups his game and pretty soon the town is boycotting Vianne’s shop – but Armande has an idea to help her out. A dinner party, flowing freely with chocolate. Which honestly, did not sound great to me or Lisa. Neither of us thought meat with chocolate sauce sounded very good. I don’t even like fruit and chocolate together so, meat would be a huge stretch for me. However, the party is very pretty and there is a assortment of characters there, who would probably never share a table otherwise. Everyone though, has a seat at Vianne’s table. Even Roux.

There is of course the moment that things all take a turn for the worse. Tension has been building, and there is a series of events that could be disastrous. The count throws in the towel and gives in to temptation, once and for all.

I was struck by how stark the town was, how visually uninviting. All beautiful stone, everywhere, but no character, no charm, no flowers even! No bits of green, no frivolity, just an overbearing statue in the square. Obviously this was meant to be representative of the townspeople themselves, who had fallen into some sort of cycle of denying oneself anything. The widow Madam Audel lost her husband forty years ago, and that was still too soon for her admirer to try to woo her. (at least before Vianne arrived). They were stuck in time, stuck within themselves, stuck in a rut. I am glad that they all finally allowed themselves to be shook loose.

And that is it! We have reached the end of our journey this year through Comfy Cozy movies! We plan on doing it again next year, starting the first week of September, and hope you will join in. If you have any suggestions for us, I would love to hear them! Thank you again to everyone who participated by commenting or posting!

If you watched the movie and want to link up, here is the linky!

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

And if you haven’t had enough Comfy Cozy, stick around! We will be hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas beginning December 1 and continuing through Jan. 2.

We will be sharing all of our cozy little holiday posts, about movies and gift guides and baking and books and other surprises we may have in our stockings! We would love for you to join in with us, and share your holiday posts here as well! Please keep them in theme with the holidays/winter (or summer for those in the southern hemisphere!), but it doesn’t have to be just Christmas, just seasonal from any walk of life, culture, or faith that happens between now and January 2nd is welcome! I will have a special dedicated page at the top of my blog with the link available all that month.