Merci pour le Chocolat, written by Caroline Eliacheff and Claude Chabrol, based on the novel by Charlotte Armstrong - 9.6 out of 10

Merci pour le Chocolat, written by Caroline Eliacheff and Claude Chabrol, based on the novel by Charlotte Armstrong

9.6 out of 10

Merci pour le Chocolat is the kind of crime story where we do not have a murder and then we follow in the footsteps of Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes or another famous detective to observe who has done it, but on the contrary, we gradually, starting from early on, suspect that Marie-Claire ‘Mika’ Muller aka majestic, divine Isabelle Huppert is acting strangely and she surely would soon take a hatchet or a bazooka and summarily end the life of multitudes and if not, well, at least a dozen would have to be dispatched…

Early on, she is married to serene, eerie, levitating – but we soon see that because he is on drugs – Andre Polonski aka talented, outré, outlandish – not as in the stupid Trump’s impeachment trial – Jacques Dutronc – wondrous in Van Gogh – and we learn soon that the man is a successful, acclaimed pianist and she is the boss of a major company, a chocolate factory, where she would operate in the manner of the infamous Fat Donnie, when she is faced with opposition, well…she eliminates it without remorse and the shadow of a doubt or hesitation

Anna Mouglalis is able to more than stand up to the major players in this spectacular drama as Jeanne Pollet, an upcoming pianist who has lunch with her mother, boyfriend and another friend, when she finds about a barmy, bizarre incident that took place right after she was born, when Andre Polonski had come to see his new born baby, he was given…Jeanne, as it turned out by mistake, for he had had a boy and there was some shortage of bracelets and then the confusion was cleared…

Nevertheless, the fact that she is a pianist, just as Polonski is could indicate something more or other than just a gaffe, for we all know about genes – indeed, some recent studies have revealed that even the tendency to…watch television to a certain degree can be inherited…not 100% evidently, but it is still baffling and tormenting- and the young woman is made to wonder if her real father is not the famous artist after all and therefore she decides to pay a visit, when she is kept at the door by the son of the celebrity, Guillaume Polonski, she passes by him and explains that she is the infant he – the pianist – had kept in his arms years before…

Intrigued by the story, the musician invites the girl to spend more time, fascinated by the idea that she is also a musician – a detail that has all the minds of those present circulating the hypothesis of the babies swap – and then they agree on some lessons from the established artist for the girl who has a way to go…

Alas, this situation does not seem to please Marie – Claire Muller, though on the surface, she declares her ravishment at the encounter and the colossal pleasure she would have to see the girl again, she invites her to a room where she intentionally spills the recipient with her ‘famous, regular chocolate’, the beverage she prepares for the others as a ritual, every evening, but which the guest has seen her in a  reflection spill on the floor on purpose…a detail which would so much puzzle her as to expose it to Guillaume, who is very antagonistic and hostile, but when she finds from the lab analysis, made by her boyfriend, that the drink contains drugs, basically, she understands she is on to some very dark secret…

Meanwhile, Mika visits Louis Pollet, the mother of the young woman, who is the director of the Legal Medicine Hospital or some such institution, and tries to muddy the waters, spy on the family or she acts upon some dark, inexplicable, vicious instinct, for she had seen very well that the daughter had not told the mother about the visit and the special character would later explain some of the workings of her devious mind – also the fact that this could well be a medical condition…not that this would absolve her of guilt, but may still act as attenuating circumstances to a certain degree…

Jeanne makes progress in her lessons and the older pianist is more than satisfied with her talent, though this closeness might not work to the advantage of the girl, given the presumed jealousy of the scheming Marie-Claire, the one who drugs her step son and husband – we find that she was the sister of the late wife of the artist, Guillaume’s mother, who had died in a suspicious accident, bizarre in that her surviving husband is not sure if she had not killed herself, given the drugs found at her autopsy…this mystery would be cleared, but by this time, every viewer is entitled to more than guess, be sure what the real events had looked like…

The younger artist is invited to spend two days with the Polonski family and this provokes a moment of ‘truth’ with her mother, who is facing the idea that her daughter seems to think she is the daughter of the other pianist – she has explained earlier to Mika about the legal situation, how tests have to be ordered by a legal trial to be started and the fact that both her husband and she have always been convinced that Jeanne is her daughter and the debacle at the nursery was just that…a mistake.

The climax reached in this marvelous story is gradual, poignant, smart and we expect it with breathless impatience and we may also wonder why the girl is not more cautious, given the circumstances, but on the other hand, people act in strange ways and without anything definite, she has no real evidence to say that Mika is a serious villain and not a confused, though decent figure, with a penchant for out of the ordinary acts…