Five years have passed since Chocolat, the story of a woman (or is she a witch?) who, with her six-year-old daughter, Anouk, blows into the stuffy little village of Lansquenet and opens her chocolate shop at just the wrong time -- and in just the wrong place -- incurring the wrath of the local priest and pitting Church against Chocolate.
Since then, things have changed. Vianne has another daughter, Rosette; Anouk has started secondary school; and the three of them are living in a rented chocolaterie in the Montmartre district of Paris. On the surface, life seems good; Anouk goes to school; Vianne has finally found a niche for herself. She is accepted within the community. She has learnt to conform; to blend in. The wind has stopped blowing -- for a while.
But security has a high price, and Vianne has made some heavy sacrifices. She has given up her motherβs ways; the magic that she and her daughters shared. She has given up her identity, living now under the name of Yanne Charbonneau. She has even given up making chocolates -- the demands of motherhood are just too much -- and now orders her stock, just like everyone else. Most importantly, she has given up true love -- in the person of Rosetteβs father, Roux -- and is considering marriage to her reassuringly conventional landlord Thierry, who promises her financial security and a home for her children.
Meanwhile, Anouk (now called Annie) is on the cusp of adolescence. A misfit and a loner at school, she hates Paris, resents the "new" Vianne, and desperately misses the intimacy they once had together. Rosette is nearly four years old, with physical and behavioural problems that are only exacerbated by her uncanny and disturbing Accidents...
Onto this stage comes Zozie de lβAlba, blowing into town on the Day of the Dead. Beautiful, passionate, bohemian and fabulously indifferent to convention, she befriends Anouk, moves into the shop, seduces half the neighbourhood with her effortless charm and little by little, helps Vianne regain, not only her skills, but her life --
But Zozie is not without an agenda. Little by little her influence grows - over Vianne, the shop, the customers, but most of all over Anouk, who sees in her an echo of her own mother, without all the fears that inhibit her. And as Christmas approaches and Zozieβs "help" becomes increasingly more questionable, it becomes clear that behind the charismatic faΓ§ade there hides a cold and malevolent being, her power immense; her greed insatiable; her ultimate goal -- Possession.
Media Buzz
Morning Edition - May 2, 2008 Diane Rehm Show - NPR - April 22, 2008
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