I felt sick to my stomach the entire time I was watching this movie - not because of the graphic content, but because I knew I had just made a huge mistake by paying five dollars to see this film.
First, I will admit that there is, at least, one good theme in this movie: Grenouille (French for "frog") realizes the transitory nature of our existence and tries (in his own ridiculous and horrifyingly non-compelling way) to establish something permanent about himself. The problem I have with this movie is that the thematic richness of the film can be summed up in that one sentence... Yet, the film is 2 hours and 27 minutes long.
The film is about a sociopath with an absolutely unbelievable sense of smell, played by Ben Whishaw. The emotionless portrayal (thanks, Whishaw) and staggering lack of dialog leave the audience with absolutely no chance of feeling any sympathy for (or connection to) the main character, who is the only thing on screen, smelling something or another, for what seem like hours at a time.
We can't feel especially sorry for his victims, either. Out of about fifteen girls, only three of them have any lines at all, and the best-developed victim (his final victim, the one he chases through the majority of the film, and is able to track from across a mountain range by her scent alone) is nothing more than a stock character. The victims have absolutely no character depth whatsoever - they could be played by mannequins, and the rational portion of the audience is left wondering why, exactly, we are supposed to care about Grenouille's killing spree at all.
Alan Rickman's portrayal was excellent, although this portrayal was overshadowed by the terrible quality of the way the character was written. Dustin Hoffman's character was likely the most bland and uninteresting character I have ever seen him portray, and, although I am certainly a fan of Dustin Hoffman, I was not impressed with his performance here. None of the other characters even had enough dialog or screen time to develop into rich or interesting characters.
The exposition of the film is mildly compelling, although no momentum initiated in the exposition comes anywhere close to building and carrying through to the climax. There is no rising action for what seems like a very, very long time. The majority of the first half of the film seems to be comprised of the anti-hero standing around, trying to look creepy while either smelling something or yelling at Dustin Hoffman's character for not being able to synthesize the scent of copper or something equally asinine and uninteresting to the viewer.
The climax of the film is lazy and nonsensical. A frenzied, bloodthirsty mob that wants the anti-hero dead for killing thirteen girls begins to adore and worship him because he dabs some perfume (which he made from the dead girls) on his neck. Then the crowd rapidly becomes a giant orgy because he throws his perfume-soaked handkerchief out into the crowd. A man whose daughter was killed by Grenouille smells the anti-hero and begs for the murderer's forgiveness, calling him "my son." It's deus ex machina, it's not compelling at all, and it's completely infuriating.
It is matter-of-factly stated by the narrator that Grenouille could literally conquer the world "and more, if he wanted to" with the perfume, which is one of the only things I can think of that is as utterly laughable as the orgy/forgiveness scene immediately preceding the line.
Finally, the line that the audience is left with as the movie ends is as infuriatingly ludicrous as anything else in the film: after Grenouille entices the impoverished people of the Paris fish markets to tear him to shreds and eat his flesh by pouring the "dead girl perfume" on himself, the narrator states that the man's killers felt happy, because this horribly bestial act was the first thing that they felt had done purely out of love. Since the film does not even attempt to explore the immensely complex theme of what love is, I cannot even begin to properly express the incompetence with which this movie addresses the theme with which the filmmakers chose to end the movie.
To summarize: what may be the film's most problematic aspect is the fact that, while the audience has almost no reason whatsoever to sympathize with the central character, the narration and the construction of the film's events are CLEARLY orchestrated to portray the murderous anti-hero as the true victim of the film. Unfortunately, that role belongs to neither the pseudo-creepy and non-compelling anti-hero nor his bland and undeveloped victims. The true victims of this film are the movie-going audience.
