Merci pour le chocolat (Thanks for the chocolate) is a 2000 French Psychological Thriller film directed by Claude Chabrol, starring Isabelle Huppert and Jacques Dutronc. It based on the novel The Chocolate Cobweb by Charlotte Armstrong.
After losing his second wife Lisbeth in a car accident, famous pianist André Polonski remarries Marie-Claire "Mika" Muller, the owner of a Swiss chocolate company and his first wife. They live with André and Lisbeth's teenage son Guillaume, who seems to lack any true interest in his life. One day, young pianist Jeanne comes at their door, suspecting to be André's daughter. And once she gets to know Mika better, this won't be her only suspect.
Merci pour le chocolat provides examples of:
- Alas, Poor Villain: By the end, Mika knows she will brought to justice for poisoning Lisbeth but it's clear that she's a very mentally ill person. The film closes on her silently breaking down as André plays a funeral march at the piano.
- Chocolate of Romance: Inverted and subverted. Despite owning a chocolate company, Mika is far from being a romantic woman and her marriage lacks any real passion. She often makes hot chocolate for her stepson Guillaume, which could qualify as familial love until Jeanne finds out she's using the chocolate to drug him.
- Ice Queen: As it befits a character portrayed by Isabelle Huppert, Mika is a cold businesswoman who rarely if ever lets out her emotions. She's a little warmer with her family but even then, she's always self-contained.
- Put Them All Out of My Misery: Mika feels like an Empty Shell with no sense of belonging to anyone. In a twisted way, resorting to drug the people closest to her is a way to numb them to the pain of a meaningless existence.
- The Reveal: The car crash in which Lisbeth died happened because Mika had purposely drugged her. Typically for a Chabrol's thriller, this is shown before the final act, thus building the tension for the rest of the film through Dramatic Irony.
- Switched at Birth: What Jeanne suspects has happened to her.
- Tranquil Fury: André when he learns the truth about Lisbeth's death and Guillaume's poisoning. He barely raises his voice, but he makes sure to play a funeral march on the piano to underline Mika's defeat.
- Villainous BSoD: Mika enters one after learning that Jeanne e Guillaume have survived the car accident she arranged.
- Who's Your Daddy?: Jeanne wonders if she's Polonski's biological daughter. She's not.
- Wicked Stepmother: Inverted with Mika, who makes even more efforts to connect with Guillaume than his own father. However it gets played straight when it turns out that she's been regularly drugging him.
