Stephen Mercer
Movies are seldom as good as the books. The same is true here, but the producers did their best to portray the story as true to the book as was feasible. It's a worthwhile story. I won't spoil the plot, just suggest that it's worth seeing.
Smoreni Zmaj
A drama about a young man, born with a perfect sense of smell, trying to create a perfect perfume, a fragrance that will allow humans to, at least for a moment, touch Paradise. The story, at the same time deeply romantic and extremely morbid, so perfectly told from the angle of the serial killer, that you must make an effort not to cheer for him. The film is perfect to the tiniest detail, and the last two scenes, the scene of "execution" and the scene of "suicide", are among the most powerful movie scenes I have ever seen.10/10
helenjones1978
After recently watching films like personal shopper and the clouds of sils Maria I wanted a film that would ignight the thought process by reading other reviews I thought this would be a brilliant film but perfume just left me feeling uninspired and bored. How disappointing waste of Friday night. I completely got the concept of the film I just thought it was terrible. If you haven't seen the first two films I mentioned above watch them instead and save yourself 2 hours and 27 minuets of boredom. Awful.
Anssi Vartiainen
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) was born under a fish market table in 18th century France. Hardly a illustrious beginning for one's life, but Grenouille happened to be blessed with a certain extraordinary talent. That of his sense of smell. And when one has nothing else but a singular talent, one should utilize it to one's best ability. Which in this case leads Grenouille down a dark path in his pursuit for the most beautiful fragrance and ways to preserve it.Perfume is a lopsided movie. Its cinematography and visuals are certainly worthy of recognition. It's a beautiful film in every way, even though the early scenes are perhaps even over the top grimy in their depiction of Grenouille's humble beginnings. The acting is also for the most part very good, with Alan Rickman of course completely stealing every scene he's in. Whishaw as the leading man is a bit of a nonentity, but then that's the character. He's an empty person. He is nothing but his sense of smell. That's the character.Unfortunately the storytelling is pretty weak. I haven't read the book, but I've heard quite a bit about it and it seems like they skipped over certain parts, which would have made the story feel more cohesive. Or to be more accurate, they didn't even skip per se. Rather they rushed over them. For example, there's this scene where Grenouille finds a cave curiously lacking in scent. A quiet place for him. In the book this is apparently an important moment for him and quite a lot of time is spent in there. In the movie he crawls into the cave and in the next scene he crawls out. Nothing happened. But hey, the cave was in the book so it should be in the movie as well. Right?The ending is also one that's going to divide opinions. I found it to be extremely over the top and hilarious, but apparently it has been quite moving to some people. To each their own, I suppose, but proceed with caution.All in all it's a movie that I could see myself recommending. It is certainly a very unique story and the technical aspects all work. Not my cup of tea really, but I can tip my hat to its merits.
AD
