Merci pour le Chocolat

Isabelle Huppert and Jacques Dutronc

A study of perversity in the guise of a thriller, Claude Chabrol's Merci pour le Chocolat, from 2000, is engrossing, if not spectacular, fare. It takes Chabrol one wedding reception scene to establish a tone of bourgeoise one-upmanship and social Darwinism. The country house the main couple, Isabelle Huppert and Jacques Dutronc, reside in contains a murderous secret, just like the houses in the Renoir and Fritz Lang films Huppert gives her step-son to watch. 

Since we know by the second reel that Huppert is dosing her family's hot chocolate with benzodiazepine, the film lacks mystery, but triumphs as a chilling portrait of the mask of a psychopath. Huppert, Ms. Poker Face herself, tops even Chabrol's main muse, Stephane Audran, in portraying a character who stays true to the bourgeoise dictum of keeping up appearances even when plotting a frenemy's demise. Loosely based on Charlotte Armstrong's The Chocolate Cobweb.