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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

2006

Tom Tykwer

Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Dustin Hoffman ...

6.7

60,201

Thriller. Mystery. Drama In 18th Century, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with no smell, develops a superior olfactory sense, which he uses to create the world's finest perfumes. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent.

	Author	Review
United States	Derek Elley Variety	"The seductive, sensory prose of Patrick Suskind's bestseller, 'Perfume,' reaches the screen with loads of visual panache but only intermittent magic"	NEU
United States	Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"Despite a fairly spectacular climax, the material's generic limitations eventually catch up with the plot"	NEU
United States	A. O. Scott The New York Times	"Try as it might to be refined and provocative, 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' never rises above the pedestrian creepiness of its conceit"	NEG
United States	Ty Burr Boston Globe	"As astonishing as 'Perfume' often is to watch, it has a built-in limitation: The main character is and remains a cipher"	NEU
United Kingdom	Dan Jolin Empire	"The odd conclusion renders it somewhat oblique, but 'Perfume' is a feast for the senses. Smell it with your eyes... (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Carina Chocano Los Angeles Times	"As much as it’s in many ways a visual pleasure, tonally, the movie is a mess (...) As a story about a guy with a passion for virgin scents, it really doesn’t say anything at all."	NEU
United States	Moira MacDonald Seattle Times	"It's a creative and original work, shining colorful light on darkness."	POS
United States	Nathan Rabin AV Club	"'Perfume's utterly singular protagonist is less a plausible human being than a precious literary conceit"	NEU
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"There is nothing fun about the story, except the way it ventures so fearlessly down one limited, terrifying, seductive dead end, and finds there a solution both sublime and horrifying (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"Never was a story more obviously in dire need of a proper ending, and Grenouille himself (...) wastes no time becoming an incredible bore (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"	NEG

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