The movie opens with Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) being sentenced to a gruesome punishment during the 18th century cheered on lustily by the crowd. He was born in the putrid 1738 Paris fish market, found in the pile of fish guts, and his mother sent to the gallows. He's put in the overcrowded orphanage where the other kids immediately try to kill him. He unnerves the other kids with his strange superior ability to smell. He is sold to the tannery at the age of 13. When he grows older, he is entranced by the smells of the city and the smell of the Plum Girl. He accidentally kills her leaving him with a desire to preserve the intoxicating scent of the girl. While delivering leather, he impresses perfumer Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) who is now too old and out of touch. So much so that Baldini purchases the young man. Grenouille is obsessed with a way to replicate. Baldini tells him of the mysterious art of enfleurage found in Grasse. While walking on a country road, he is overtaken by the smell of Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood). Her father is Antoine Richis (Alan Rickman).
This would be a great movie for smell-o-vision. The style is doing the next best thing. It is grungy, dark and ugly. The ugliness pushes the senses of the audience. Ben Whishaw is wonderfully creepy. He does a scary stone-faced intensity. His character is isolated. He's obsessed. This is the essence of the movie. It's about his obsession and his amoral pursuit of it. He brings no judgment to his life other than to satisfying the obsession. I would say the movie has a sexual sense if not for the fact that it is done in such a gruesome manner. This is a movie unlike most others. This movie is deliciously horrible.
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