Perfect Sense: Perfectly Pretentious

Written by Pam Glazier Monday, February 13, 2012, 2:05 PM

Perfect Sense is a perfect piece of trite, snobby, pseudo-intellectual crap. Augh, god! It was possibly worse than Albatross (and that film, when I think about it for too long, stimulates my gag reflex—not because it was gross, but because it was just that snootily full of itself while simultaneously being bland and unoriginal). I mean, seriously, look at all the adverbs the memories of these films are inspiring. It’s like their crappiness is contagious, and now I’ve unintentionally got the bug.

I know, you’re probably wondering what it was that made this film so terrible, so let’s take a think on it for a moment: Was it the acting? No. The acting was decent. Was it the look of the film or how it was shot? No, it was actually kind of pretty in an independently artsy kind of way. Was it that English actress’ cheekbones? We all know that there are certain types of actresses’ cheekbones that can just put you on the wrong side of somebody. Did she have cheekbones like that? Well, she did actually, but she was good enough at acting that her cheekbones didn’t sway my feelings about the film. I actually kind of maybe liked her character maybe.

No, there was something inherently off in the story, so let me orient you to it a bit so you know what I’m talking about. We start off meeting Michael (Ewan McGregor) and Susan (Eva Green). Michael is a chef and Susan is an epidemiologist—but these facts don’t matter because we meet them as they first meet each other, in a one night stand. After sex, Michael kicks Susan out of bed because he feels uncomfortable falling asleep when there is another person in the same bed. So Susan leaves and they both return to their lives: Michael “the emotionally distant” chef and Susan “the bad with men” epidemiologist.

None of this really matters though because all of a sudden there is an epidemic of people having intense bouts of grief, and then once they calm down, they’ve lost their sense of smell. Susan observes an early case of this and it is clear that there is no known cause of this strange phenomenon, but soon the entire world comes down with this loss of smell. We see the effects this has through various “global vignette” montages while Susan narrates an introspective voice over about what it means to lose smells and the memories associated with them. We are given a further slice of the implications of this through Michael. His job as a chef is instantly affected, and he and his co-workers have breakdowns about being ruined by this. Michael and Susan meet again right around this time. Susan recognizes him from the one night stand and is consequently distant from him, but he doesn’t remember and so flirts with her, even though she’s shut him down several times. One day Susan becomes stricken with grief and Michael tries to console her, but ends up succumbing to it as well. They both wake up the next day without the sense of smell.

That’s around the 20 minute mark. The rest of the movie is the world finally adjusting to the loss of a sense, and just when everyone seems ok, then everyone loses another sense, and then everyone freaks out, and then everyone adjusts, and then another sense is lost. There are always accompanying indicators (such as rage for hearing, happiness for taste, etc.) but these indicators seem to have no point. As all this is going on, we see the detrimental effects all of this has on the restaurant Michael works for. We also see Michael and Susan become closer, even though it is clear that they are both shitty and broken people. Michael dumped his last girlfriend because she was sick and she ended up dying alone; while Susan hates her sister’s kids because she herself is infertile. Sometimes this connection between flawed characters is endearing and wonderful, but I felt none of that warmth for these two. Maybe this emotional ennui was the point, but just because a point is intentional does not make it enjoyable. Michael and Susan are assholes and so I give less of a crap about whether or not they find a connection.

Of course, McGregor and Green do a great job in this movie. They made these characters as likeable as they could be, but good acting can only go so far.

Focusing on Michael’s restaurant is stupid when you’ve got a leading epidemiologist as one of the main characters of the story. If her inclusion was supposed to underscore the helplessness of the medical profession to stop this catastrophe, then there should have been more of a focus on that and not on the restaurant. It would have been better if both characters were helpless in the face of this mystery sickness because they were just bystanders (perhaps a chef and a teacher or something).

Also, Eva Greens character is an EPIDEMIOLOGIST. Overly long and poetic voiceovers regarding the state of the world in panic is HIGHLY UNREALISTIC. The reason there aren’t tons of poetic epidemiologists in the world is because it takes OVER A DECADE to become one. There isn’t a whole bunch of time to hone ones “I have depth” impromptu monologues. These interludes would have been more realistic coming from the chef.

But here we are. Apparently, it takes a global epidemic for a couple of assholes to get together. Why anybody should give a shit is beyond me. If something of this magnitude were to happen, I’d be asking a bunch of sciencey questions—ESPECIALLY IF I WAS A FREAKING EPIDEMIOLOGIST. I wouldn’t be prancing around moodily with a douche bag chef.

And that is why this film is ultimately annoying. Not only is the narrative horrifically unbelievable despite my immense ability to suspend disbelief; but it is also goes to the harrowing extremes of pretention. There’s arty cinematography, subtle acting, the soundtrack is muted in that “I listen to classical music” hipster-douche kind of way, and there’s voiceovers on top of global montages which arrogantly suggest that this tiny story of dread speaks for the whole global culture as it descends into doom.