Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Directed by Tom Tykwer, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer follows an 18th century olfactory genius (Ben Whishaw’s Jean-Baptiste Grenouille) as he embarks on a killing spree. Filmmaker Tykwer, armed with a script written alongside Andrew Birkin and Bernd Eichinger, delivers a mostly underwhelming endeavor that gets off to an especially rough, lackluster start, as Perfume: The Story of a Murderer kicks off with an almost egregiously unpleasant opening stretch that transpires inside a dirty, less-than-visually-appealing landscape – with the arms-length atmosphere exacerbated by Whishaw’s suitably creepy yet far-from-charismatic turn as the rather reprehensible central character. And while the picture briefly improves with the arrival of Dustin Hoffman’s lighthearted and scene-stealing Giuseppe Baldini, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer progresses into a repetitive and fairly endless midsection that slowly-but-surely drains the viewer’s interest and attention – which, when coupled with a palpably silly climax wherein Grenouille transforms into some kind of perverted superhero, ultimately cements the film’s place as a wildly overlong misfire that contains few agreeable attributes.

* out of ****