Peace by Chocolate: A tasty confection

Peace by Chocolate (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, and suitable for all ages

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.10.22

Everybody in our bunkered, “fear the other” country should be forced to sit down and watch this Canadian charmer: as uplifting and (ahem) sweet a story — based on actual events — as I’ve seen in quite awhile.

 

Tareq (Ayham Abou Ammar, left) listens politely, but with mounting dread, as his father
Issam (Hatem Ali) explains how they can work together to rebuild the family's
chocolate empire.

In the real world, Issam Hadhad began his chocolate-making business in 1986, initially working from his grandmother’s kitchen in Damascus. He soon expanded into two shops, and within a quarter-century the business had grown to 30 employees, who helped distribute Issam’s chocolates throughout the Middle East and much of Europe.

In 2012, everything was destroyed by bombs dropped during the Syrian civil war, which had begun the previous year. The war forced the entire Hadhad family to leave Syria for Lebanon, where they pondered what to do next.

 

This is where director Jonathan Keijser’s quirky little film begins. He and co-scripter Abdul Malik depict this family’s subsequent saga with warmth, respect, a whimsical tone, and (more or less) fidelity to what actually happened.

 

Their narrative focuses on Issam’s son Tareq (a delightfully nuanced performance by Ayham Abou Ammar), the first family member to be accepted as a refugee sponsored by citizens of the tiny town of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He arrives in the middle of a punishing winter; the shocked, wide-eyed expression on Ammar’s face — as he surveys the snowbound surroundings — speaks volumes.

 

(“In the Middle East,” the actual Tareq recalled, during a 2021 interview with The National News, “Canada [is regarded as] the coldest country that escaped from the Ice Age.”)

 

When greeted at the airport by sponsors Frank (Mark Camacho), his wife Heather (Cary Lawrence) and their friend Zariah (Kathryn Kirkpatrick), they gift him with a woolen cap emblazoned with the word “Canada.” This random act of kindness, along with cheery greetings from everybody Tareq meets, results in a severe case of culture shock (which Ammar plays with hilarious bewilderment).

 

Tareq had been a medical student back in Syria; he hopes to become a doctor. Such desires are set aside while he works with Frank to help bring his mother Shahnaz (Yara Sabri) and father (celebrated actor/director Hatem Ali, in his final role before he died) to Antigonish. For the moment, his sister Alaa (Najlaa Al Khamri) and her young child remain in Lebanon.

 

Distraught by this, Issam explores the town; he’s delighted to find a chocolate shop. But since he can’t speak English, his enthusiasm is misinterpreted by owner Kelly (Alika Autran), who finds his interest intrusive.

 

Frustrated by his inability to communicate — Tareq is the only bilingual family member — Issam retreats to the tiny kitchen in their new home, determined to “show” Kelly how proper chocolate should be made.

 

This, despite the obvious lack of utensils, measuring containers, molds and everything else he took for granted, back in his Syrian factory.

 

The deeper Issam gets into this project, the more he expects Tareq to help. This is a familiar subtext in Keijser and Malik’s script: how what a traditional father takes for granted, clashes with the son’s desires and expectations.

 

Ali and Ammar deftly convey this conflict: Issam with exasperation and increasingly insistent demands, Tareq with a quietly agonized blend of frustration and guilt. Meanwhile, applications to Canadian medical schools are repeatedly rejected.

 

As his father’s confectionery activities become more ambitious, poor Tareq becomes increasingly discouraged, seeing his own ambitions fading out of sight.

 

This unhappy father/son conflict is offset by the Hadhad family’s ongoing bafflement regarding their colorful, overtly friendly and mildly eccentric Canadian friends: a tried-and-true cinema cliché that Keijser plays for gentle comedy. Camacho, Lawrence, Kirkpatrick — and all the other bit players who pop up as Antigonish citizens — are delightful scene-stealers.

 

(If the utter absence of xenophobia seems unlikely, I can only say that Keijser and Malik are entitled to portray it that way, since that’s how it went down in real life.)

 

Poor Autran is tasked with being the sole sourpuss, as Kelly begins to regard Issam as a threat to her business: a subplot that remains unresolved when the film concludes (the one sloppy note in Keijser and Malik’s otherwise solid script).

 

The initially snowbound setting looks convincingly arctic, with a Montreal January standing in for Antigonish. Production designer David Blanchard creates a persuasive small-town look and atmosphere, and whoever actually made all the chocolate candies, as the story progresses, deserves a medal; one wants to reach into the screen and snatch a dozen. Or two.

 

Keijser’s delightful film can be enjoyed as a droll fish-out-of-water saga, with Issam and his family learning how to become comfortable in their own surroundings; but it’s also the frankly jaw-dropping account of what these newcomers were able to do, in a few short years, thanks to the welcoming support of the Antigonish residents who embraced them whole-heartedly.

It’s an object lesson for those who espouse the blatant prejudice and racism on the rise these days, here in the United States.