fmoramar

What a treat to watch three of the best actors of our time in the same movie! Judy Dench is an international treasure; Cate Blanchett never looked better or created a more compelling character in any of her other movies, and I had the good fortune to discover Bill Nighy on Broadway in "The Vertical Hour" with Julianne Moore the night before I saw "Notes from a Scandal," and I now want to see everything he's done. A superlative creator of character. "Notes from a Scandal" tells us a lot about the "British" penchant for relishing "scandals" (they invented the tabloid press) and also about the odd, intersecting relationships that have become a nearly commonplace reality in the contemporary world. Both Blanchett and Dench (as Sheba and Barbara) teach at the same Islington secondary school. And both, in very different ways, embark on "inappropriate" relationships that create turmoil in their lives and the lives of their community. Judy Dench conveys the desperate loneliness of her character's life and a remarkable scene of her smoking a cigarette in a bathtub conveys the distinction between her kind of loneliness--an older, unattractive, single woman with no real connections in life--and the more endurable kinds of loneliness that many of us share. This is a gripping film that moves crisply from one scene to the next, missing only a very few beats along the way. A must see.

I saw this film after reading about 1/2 of the book and I was reluctant to see it before I finished the book, but I was absolutely absorbed by the film from the beginning. The film so fully engages our senses, especially our sense of smell that you can almost smell the on screen smells in the theater. (In the 60's there was a film experiment with a process called "Aromarama" where actual smells were released into the theater...this would have been the perfect film to do that with.) The visuals in the film are stunning and several of the scenes are unforgettable. In addition, the film takes a number of surprising turns keeping us off guard throughout. It's difficult to say too much about the plot without giving too much away, but the evocation of 18th century France is extraordinary. It's a film about a man's obsession to discover who he is and whether it is possible for him to love and be loved. Many people may find aspects of "Perfume" puzzling, but it's really quite carefully worked out thematically and gives us substantial insights into deeply lodged human needs and desires. We all want to make a difference in the world and the main character is driven by that need and the need to shape and discipline his talent so he can contribute something. That need becomes perverted in the course of his achieving it. This is not a film for everyone, but I loved it.

Here's a lively intense film, beautifully acted, gorgeously shot, energetically directed, and yet the whole doesn't quite come together. It's in some senses a period piece that pretty well gets stuck in its period--England in the early 60s, when a lot of smoking and Freudian psychoanalysis were both in their heyday. There are a lot of twists and turns in this drama, each one grimmer and more outrageous than the last, but in the end what you admire are the sensitive and engaging performances of Natasha Richardson and Ian McKellen, both of whom take us into this soap opera of a drama and make us care about their characters. That's more that can be said for the screenplay which would fit comfortably on daytime TV. It's worth watching for the performances, but its not a film you'd recommend to friends.