The movie is lost. Whishaw succeeds in making the repulsive protagonist thoroughly repulsive, which is probably a testimony to his acting ability. But it doesn't make it anything worth watching.
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01/05/07
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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
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Reviews Counted:121
Fresh:69
Rotten:52
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: Perfume is what you'd expect from a Tom Twyker-directed movie glamorizing a serial killer: a kinetic visual feast, with a dark antihero that's impossible to feel sympathy for.
Theatrical Release:Dec 27, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $2,101,584
Synopsis: Author Patrick Suskind enjoys a career shrouded in Salinger-esque mystery. Suskind's best-selling novel PERFUME was coveted by Hollywood for many years, and finally makes it to the screen in this... [More]
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood
Director: Tom Tykwer
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Reviews for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Top CriticDirector Tom Tykwer masterfully conveys the sensuality of smell via captivating images. The intriguing performance by newcomer Ben Whishaw conveys the profound effect of his supersensitive nose.
01/05/07
Even if that broad interpretation -- that art is worth any human cost, that identity can be put on, like a scent -- leaves you cold, there's a world to immerse yourself in, a killer to be pursued, and an innocent to be feared for.
01/05/07
Whishaw's oddly charismatic performance makes the despicable Grenouille into an almost sympathetic antihero. The rather astonishing finale will likely have audiences either howling in derision or ardently dissecting afterward.
01/05/07
Perfume is not gratuitously violent, nor does it focus on the act of murder itself. There are numerous suspenseful and creepy scenes showing Jean-Baptiste at work, but, primarily, the movie is the study of a troubled human being.
01/05/07
The movie is pretty to look at, but over-long and, in the end, self-conscious. What a disappointment.
01/05/07
Lush visuals and lusty, rhapsodic language bring Perfume as close as cinematically possible to capturing an elusive sense.
01/05/07
Perfume, a fast-paced allegorical tale about the pursuit of perfection, may fill the senses for its duration, but without a discernible psychological essence it does not linger for long.
01/05/07
Top CriticTykwer has to set a unique tone here -- fairy tales about serial killers being somewhat rare -- and he manages the absurdity of his subject matter well, keeping Jean-Baptiste right on the edge between monster and genius.
01/05/07
Director Tom Tykwer can be commended for capturing so much of the book's mélange of pleasure, pain and longing for the impossible in Perfume, which is at least the most elegant movie yet made about the exploits of a serial killer.
01/05/07
Top CriticPerfume reminds us that the line between masterwork and folly can be awfully thin. But the movie contains so many beautiful and unsettling moments that it earns a right to be seen, if not fully embraced.
01/05/07
Top CriticSo rich is the book's language about our scented world, it was difficult to imagine a movie capturing the texture of its remarkable and elusive character. Yet, Tykwer and his crew make pungent work of Grenouille's world.
01/05/07
Most horror movies try to show us the man inside the monster. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer shows us a man who is all monster, whose colossal amorality makes him a potential Messiah or menace to humanity.
01/05/07
Despite a fairly spectacular climax, the material's generic limitations eventually catch up with the plot.
01/05/07
Top CriticThe director stays true to the source novel even when it lifts into a magical realism that works only on the page, and his faithfulness betrays him. Perfume is a thriller that Hobbes might have envied.
01/05/07
By the time the mad finale rolls around, the viewer will feel had, for Perfume grasps for significance where there is none to be found.
01/05/07
There's something, radiating out from Whishaw's cipher of a performance, smelly at the core of Perfume that no amount of artifice can cover up.
01/05/07
Director Tom Tykwer's creative style of storytelling makes Perfume a compelling view, but a depraved protagonist and distasteful plot give the film an overall foul odor.
01/05/07
It is refreshing to see Rickman in a heroic role, but everything else about this overripe travesty reeks to high heaven.
01/05/07
An extremely ambitious and spectacularly produced thriller indebted to the 1960s tradition of the 'giallo'...
01/05/07
Latest News for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
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October 21, 2006:
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