LIKE WATER TO CHOCOLATE: SIMPLE, SUBTLE, AND QUITE GOOD

There are some movies that, even using several types of devices, still keep being uninteresting. Others, though, do not need much to pass some kind of charm to who is watching. That is the case of Like Water For Chocolate, a movie the trusts above all in the story that it has to tell.

For those who do not know it, Like Water For Chocolate is a 1992 mexican movie, with a script by Laura Esquivel, based on the homonymous novel also written by her. The story takes place in the beginning of the XX century. The storyline is quite simple and direct: Tita, the protagonist, performed with beauty and charisma by Lumi Cavazos, is forbidden from getting married because of a family tradition, since she is the youngest daughter, who is supposed to take care of her mother until she dies. Being in love with Tita, Pedro (Marco Leonardi) marries her sister in order to stay close to the woman he truly loves. There is a war as a background and the kitchen as the main setting for the whole movie.  It is there where Tita gives away all her love making recipes that causes everybody, including Pedro, to feel delighted. With just few special effects and few action scenes, the movie has other qualities, like a gorgeous photography together with a gorgeous recreation of the beginning of the century. The Scripts count strongly on its lovely characters, each one carefully designed. An Tita, as the main character, is who causes the story to follow ahead, either in the moments she confronts her mother, or in so many others in which she has to deal with her sister and the man she loves leaving in the same house. The beaty and the charm that Lumi Cavazos gives to her character é remarkable. Tita gets us the very moment she appears for the first time on the screen, putting together sensibility with atittudes that litle by little construct her character and cause the public to really wish her a happy ending. Like Water to Chocolate is not only a love story. It is a movie about family, about breaking traditions and about trying to be happy without hurting someone, which is not always possible. 

Note: 'Like water to chocolate' is a popular mexican expression that means something like 'soulmates'. The meaning comes from the fact that in Mexico and other latin countries hot chocolate is in general made with water, not milk.

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face book: Leonardo Romanov