Perfume

This was my kind of flick, from someone who loves films but rarely finds one to rave about, simply stated, "it suspended my disbelief." Don't believe the other user comments, Perfume takes you on a ride not only through the fashion world but also through life's obstacles in careers, love, and most importantly family.

I bought this VHS attracted and curious by the beautiful and unknown Estella Warren, highlighted in the cover of the Brazilian VHS, and the long list of famous actors and actresses, including Sonia Braga. However, this movie proves that quantity will never mean quality (only in "IMDb User Rating") – "Perfume" is indeed a boring and shallow movie, with very artificial lines. This crap looks like a sequel of the awful Robert Altman's "Prêt-à-Porter". The characters are not well developed, most of them only appear to give their names to the credits and create expectation of a good movie; the storyline about the world fashion is terrible and ambitious; and the awkward actress Leslie Mann, who plays one of the lead roles, has unpleasant and terrible tone of voice and corporal posture. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Perfume"

"Perfume" is apparently supposed to be a behind the scenes look at the world of high fashion; designers, models, photographers, gurus, wanabees, divas, dilettantes, etc. all involved in their daily esoteric industry activities in NYC. In spite of an even temperament and a sense of earnestness, this project just proves again that a good cast a good film does not make. A lackluster flick which wanders from one stagey scene to another showing us stammering characters with little depth while leaving us feeling disconnected, "Perfume" is marginally entertaining at best. With no story per se, no one to care about, and no clear insights into the fashion biz, there's little reason to recommend this fragrance. (C)

Taking on the fashion world- not a difficult thing to portray as far as shallowness and alienation. The only actor who is well used is Michelle Williams, as the disaffected daughter of a vain self-centered NY fashion magazine (or ragazine) editor. Think Helen Gurley Brown, or read the NY Times review of Ms. Brown's take on younger generations (in her case this means at least five) and the selfishness as they don't offer her a seat on a NYC crosstown bus. Good for a few laughs. However, I digress.

Jeff Goldblum is usually very good, but comes off as a whiny unsympathetic player; Harris Yulin is wasted as a fashion maven, who recruits young talent. Paul Sorvino portrays a Versace-like designer, whose partner is Peter Gallagher; unintentionally comical. Sonia Braga is also wasted, as she is not used for more than twenty minutes of the film.

The worst segment by far is the sequence with Mariel Hemingway- ..."you know pashminas are so out now, don't you"?"... some gofer for the fash mag tells her; the tone is affected and the camera angles disturbing.

Narcissism really isn't funny anymore. Now that we have it 24/7 with reality TV and other trash cranked out regularly for the public, the only way to make a film with this subject matter, is something along the lines of "Pret a Porter" (ready to wear) which was utterly stupid, but at least made fun of itself without a futile attempt at cleverness.

I avidly pursue these small straight to video films because sometimes you hit gold. Last year, I was rewarded twice with 'Panic' and the delicious '10 Things...' That film resembles this in some ways. But then this resembles so many other projects, most closely Altman's 'Ready to Wear' but done in a 'Best in Show' technique where the actors devise the dialog. I'm very skeptical of that technique because actors just don't have the skills or interests to shape all the dimensions of a project. But they do well enough here to not embarrass and in one case: Sorvino and Gallagher as gentle lovers they do very, very well.

But overall -- except for one major exception -- nothing in the film rises beyond pleasant spacefiller. There are lots of elements that might have been exploited but were not: the design of the eponymous perfume bottle, the state of the adrift daughter, the intelligence of the street designer (indeed, mirroring of one designer's acceptance and ones rejection of damaged children), the entrée to the big time through a sexual initiation and rejection, the drive to style and influence.

The sad thing is the lack of style in the whole project: It lacked any, and this seemed strange: it was as if the whole thing were told through an urchin's eyes.

There is one thing, one sequence, that makes this project worthwhile. As with most modern scripts, there is a self-referential bit. Here, the filmmaker is represented by a photographer who is presented with a promising subject. But she comes attached with 'dialog' that they both feel uncomfortable with. So they forcefully eject those that force these constraints and just ad lib the session. Naturally, that's what Rymer is doing with the film, so this scene is underscored. (The photographer is later rewarded for his intuition.) The importance of these scene is further emphasized by framing the whole film by two other sessions of this photographer -- the first is of him photographing nude women (obviously a nod to the expected exposure of the raw personalities of fashion to come). This is a glam heroin shot that emphasizes the wan 'pain' of the girls. Estella shows up and refuses to participate.

Then at the end, we have the same photographer, on the street, shooting a healthy-looking Estella while the drugaddled daughter walks by in the background. So that scene in the middle where the photographer/filmmaker takes things into his own hands is the soul of the movie. And it is a worthy sequence.

First of all, it features Mariel Hemingway, someone whose mere presence is impressive. The implicit pun on hemming is not beneath the level of allusion here. More powerful is the association with her famous grandfather (who killed himself) and her sister (who also killed herself). That sister made a big splash by endorsing perfume. Mariel is an enormously compelling screen presence, here at 40, and hypnotizingly lovely.

The dialog in this section is wonderful -- that stuff they say when the actual shoot is underway. In the story, that relationship between seer and seen, between designer and human art forms the armature for the whole evening: It is only a couple minutes -- he with his Mighty Mouse, she with her Moody Blues.