Plot summary

1960, small town France. Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) and her young daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) move into town and open a chocolate shop just as Lent is beginning. The town's small-minded Mayor Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina) can't accept this and does his best to shut her down, but her warm personality and incredible chocolates manage to win over many townsfolk. Things get shaken up even more when a group of river drifters, led by Roux (Johnny Depp), stop into town (to the even greater distress of the Mayor) and Vianne takes up with him. Meanwhile, she's been helping Josephine Muscat (Lena Olin) out of her abusive marriage, and her equally freethinking landlord, Amande Voizin (Dame Judi Dench), get together with her grandson, Luc Clairmont Aurelien Parent Koenig), whose mother, Caroline (Carrie-Anne Moss), doesn't approve of Amande's ways.—Jon Reeves