With intertextual nods to LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG and CHOCOLAT (amongst others), ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS can hardly be said to be particularly original in terms of plot. The nuances of chocolate and their relationship to human behavior have been well analyzed in all types of film, even CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Nonetheless Jean-Pierre Améris' film is a charming comedy set in a provincial French town, in which Angélique Delange (Isabelle Carré), a genius at chocolate making who passes herself off as a sales executive, and her boss, the gloriously named Jean-René van den Hudge (Benoit Poelvoorde), repeatedly convince themselves that they are not in love with one another, while behaving in precisely the opposite way. The problem is that both of them have a chronic lack of self-confidence. The film offers them several opportunities to get together, but eventually stages the denouement during the meeting of a self-help group called Romantics Anonymous (hence the title). Several of these sequences are cleverly filmed - for example the night when both of them are thrown together in the same hotel room during a chocolate-tasting convention. Jean-René tries every trick in the book to leave the room; having plucked up the courage to tell Angélique his feelings, he finds that she has run away. The main actors offer winsome central performances, and the props also help define their natures. Angélique's long woolly scarf, so Seventies in style, more than aptly sums her up.
Review of Romantics Anonymous
