Got a thing for the cocoa treat? These films will tickle your sweet spot.
Wonka
Roald Dahl’s children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has been beloved for decades for its combination of whimsical imagination and sometimes grotesque imagery — the type that fascinates kids. While Wonka isn’t a direct adaptation of that, it tells the origin story of Willy Wonka, the enigmatic chocolatier at the centre of the novel. Star Timothée Chalamet dons the top hat and purple coat to play the young, idealistic Willy in the days before he became the world’s greatest candy maker.
Fun fact: The many delectable treats seen in the movie were real artisanal chocolate creations. The real Willy Wonka behind the film is Welsh chocolatier Gabriella Cugno, who made over 2,000 individual chocolates for the production.
“Every piece of chocolate that I ate was real, and all the chocolates were bespoke,” Keegan Michael-Key, who plays a police chief in Wonka, tells Vanity Fair. “Sometimes, it was so delicious that I asked for an extra take.”
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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
The first big screen adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released in 1971 and has gone on to become a nostalgic favourite. The movie’s imagery, including the orange-skinned, green-haired Oompa Loompas, is now iconic. So, too, is its music, including the songs “Pure Imagination” and “The Candy Man”. Willy Wonka would go on to become one of Gene Wilder’s most defining film roles.
The movie achieved great success despite Roald Dahl’s infamous resistance to Wilder’s casting. “I think he felt Wonka was a very British eccentric,” Dahl’s friend and biographer Donald Sturrock says. “Gene Wilder was rather too soft and didn’t have a sufficient edge. His voice is very light, and he’s got that rather cherubic, sweet face,” he adds. Nevertheless, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory became a huge hit and an enduring classic.
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Chocolat
Chocolate is often given as a gift on Valentine’s Day, and Chocolat might just be the most romantic chocolate-centric movie there is. Based on the novel of the same name by Joanne Harris, it focuses on Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche), who arrives in a small French village with her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) in 1959. She opens a chocolate shop, and the townspeople become enamoured of her creations. The town’s mayor, Reynaud (Alfred Molina), opposes Vianne, blaming her for tempting the townsfolk during Lent. Meanwhile, Vianne falls for Roux (Johnny Depp), who lives on a boat and leads a camp of Romani based by the river near the town.
Fun fact: Binoche, a self-confessed chocolate fan, admitted to getting a little sick of chocolate during the promotional tour for the movie. She tells _The Hollywood Report_er: “I discovered that Johnny Depp actually didn’t like chocolate. He was spitting it out after each take, and Alfred Molina didn’t like chocolate that much, either. It was a funny experience dealing with them and the faces they would make.”
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
It is ironic that Depp is apparently not a big fan of chocolate because several years after making Chocolat, he would find himself starring in a new adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This movie is very different from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, thanks to director Tim Burton, a frequent collaborator of Depp. The movie is not bound by a fealty to the earlier film adaptation. “We didn’t feel like we were constrained by anything,” Burton tells IGN about designing the movie’s look. “It had a quite experimental feel to me as we were making it. I enjoyed not quite knowing what kind of plants we were going to make or finding the right consistency with the chocolate, so it didn’t look like a brown water,” he adds.
Peace by Chocolate
This biopic tells the remarkable true story of the Hadhads, who are immigrant chocolatiers. Tareq Hadhad (Ayham Abou Ammar) emigrates from Syria to the small town of Antigonish in Nova Scotia, Canada. He wants to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor but decides to help his father, Issam (Hatem Ali), rebuild his chocolate business after the latter’s factory in Syria was bombed. Their chocolate shop, Peace by Chocolate, becomes an overnight sensation. Tareq is torn between his family obligations and an offer to return to medical school, while a rivalry develops between Issam and local chocolatier Kelly (Alika Autran).
The Hadhads rebuilt their lives to help others like them. “My father started becoming a chocolatier because he believed that he could create happiness. He believes that he was a ‘happiness maker’,” Tareq tells CBC.