Kicked under a table, discarded on the streets as his mother does with all her still borns, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born alive and well among a stench ridden 18th century Paris marketplace. When the market notices his mother’s intent to abandon him under her vendor table a mob rises and deals with the woman. Jean-Baptiste without his mother is taken in by a local family, exploring the world around him the way any baby does, only with a peculiar obsession with scent. Unaccepted by his peers through his childhood, Grenouille adapts to being an outcast. Rather than experiencing human contact, Jean chooses to shelter himself from his emotions concentrating on creating smells powerful enough in their intoxication to control whole empires. This quest takes a dark turn when he discovers the desired scent of the female body, making every effort to trap the essence.
The story of Perfume is a great one, and more weird than you’d ever imagine. The problem is the movie tries to pack too much character development into such a simple premise stretching it into Perfume: The Story of Boredom. The 2 hours and 27 minutes are worth your time, but only for a few select scenes that keep the pace just above satisfactory. It’s a shame the film was handled in this matter considering everything else from acting to effects worked great. Unfortunately like in reality this perfume, like most, kind of stinks.
