Perfume (2001)

Perfume is a film that attempts to chronicle a Fashion Week in New York. It stars Jeff Goldbloom and Muriel Hemingway. The idea was to have a series of intertwining stories of the various characters as we proceed towards the big events of Fashion Week in NYC.

This film felt like an amateur film production from beginning to end. I'm still not sure how screenwriters and directors can't understand that their job is to tell a story. Start with a beginning, introduce the characters, have some conflict develop, and resolve it somehow by the end. Shakespeare was a master at this in his plays, and plenty of other folks understand how to set up a compelling plot. Unfortunately, the makers of Perfume do not. What results is a mish mosh (in kind terms) of characters, whose paths never really intertwine. There are way too many players, and a total lack of plot. Seriously, a ten year old with a borrowed video camera wandering around Fashion Week could tell a better story with a little help editing.

On top of this, for a movie that is supposed to be about New York, there were plenty of times I couldn't even tell what city I was in. A well shot film should use the location as an additional character, and they missed the boat here too. No, we don't need the Statue of Liberty in every other shot, but most of the film could have been shot in Chicago or Baltimore for the shots they got.

I hadn't heard of this film before, and I think Perfume should be forgotten.

Overall Grade: D-