FAQ

Nineteen-year old Vivian (Agnes Bruckner) was orphaned at the age of nine when her parents, both of whom were loup garous (werewolves), were killed by hunters. She then moved to Bucharest (Romania) to live with her aunt Astrid (Katja Riemann) and cousin Rafe (Bryan Dick). When Vivian meets Aiden Galvin (Hugh Dancy), a young American graphic artist living in Bucharest and currently writing a graphic novel about the loup garous, they fall in love. But their relationship is not meant to be because Vivian has been promised to Gabriel (Olivier Martinez), the leader of the Romanian werewolf clan, and Gabriel will go to any length to separate them.

Blood and Chocolate is loosely based on the 1997 young-adult novel of the same name by American writer Annette Curtis Clause. The novel was adapted into a screenplay by American screenwriters Ehren Kruger and Christopher Landon.

The only two references to "blood and chocolate" in the film are the fact that Vivian works at a chocolate shop and when Astrid quotes a line from German-Swiss author Herman Hesse's 1927 novel Der Steppenwolf in which he writes, "I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, the one as hateful as the other." The association in Hesse's novel refers to the protagonist's split between his humanity and his wolf-life aggression. In Clause's novel, the split is similar, as Vivian struggles between lycanthropy (blood) and humanity (chocolate). However, it goes further when it presents Gabriel as a metaphor for the blood and Aiden as the chocolate. At the end of the story, Vivian must choose between Gabriel (blood) or Aiden (chocolate).

After Aiden slashes Vivian with the silver knife, not knowing it was her in wolf form, they seek out an antidote from a pharmacist who just happens to be in league with Gabriel. The pharmacist gives Vivian the antidote but alerts Gabriel to her presence. Vivian is captured and placed in a cage in a liquor distilling factory. Gabriel has given up on his belief that Vivian is the one to fulfill a prophecy about a female loup-garou leading her people into an "age of hope and glory." Instead, he intends to have the two of them hunt each other. Suddenly, Aiden (who has been watching from a skylight) shoots Gabriel. In return, Gabriel's henchmen shoot at Aiden who falls, unharmed, through the skylight. Several rounds of gunfire ensue, shooting holes in some of the liquor vats, which begins spilling on the floor. Aiden lights a match and sets the liquor on fire. Gabriel attacks Aiden, but Vivian stops him from killing Aiden by holding a gun to his back. Gabriel tells her that, if she kills him, she will be just like the hunters who killed her family. Aiden tells Vivian to shoot Gabriel, but Vivian can't do it. Gabriel takes the opportunity to shift into wolf-form and turns on Aiden. Vivian then shoots and kills Gabriel. As the fire spreads, Aiden, Vivian, and the remaining loup-garous escape from the building before it explodes. In the final scene, Aiden and Vivian escape Bucharest in Gabriel's car. In a voiceover, Vivian says, "This is my city. These are my people. They believe in prophecies and destinies. I believe we make our own." Vivian turns to Aiden and asks, "Where are we headed?" "How about the age of hope?" Aiden replies. "Either that or Paris." Their car then passes under Bucharest's triumphal arch—Arcul de Triumf—and continues out of the city.

Those who have both read the book and seen the movie basically agree, regardless of whether they preferred the movie or the book, that the movie took very little from the book other than the title, the names of the characters, and the fact that Vivian falls in love with a human. Some of the differences cited include (1) the setting in the novel is Maryland, not Romania, (2) Vivian was the artist and Aiden was a poet, (3) Vivian's mother played a key role in the book but was killed off in the first scenes of the movie, (4) Astrid was not Vivian's aunt, (5) Rafe was not the love-child of Astrid and Gabriel, (6) the ending was very different, etc.

"Stand My Ground" by Within Temptation