By Andrew Watson · June 27, 2011
Set against the backdrop of a global epidemic slowly tearing the world apart, the romance between Ewan McGregor’s selfish chef and Eva Green’s distant scientist is a touching drama that looks at the end of the world in an entirely new light. Premiering at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, it was not alone in being a film about the world ending, with climate change documentaries and The Divide, a post nuclear bunker drama. While the previous is a dark and grim affair, Perfect Sense is much different.
Michael's (Ewan McGregor) first action of the film is to tell a recent conquest that he can’t sleep with another woman in the same bed, he has no interest in pursuing woman beyond sexual pleasure. Susan (Eva Green) is a distant scientist who has lost interest in relationships and is in general, apathetic. As a mere coincidence, her apartment is right above the restaurant where Michael works, and they throw themselves into a fling.
If it we’re not for outside events, the relationship may have ended quickly. A mysterious illness is slowly spreading across the world, in which its subjects have massive attacks of abject despair, followed by a complete loss of their sense of smell. These moments are shown in montages as they spread to Edinburgh showing everyone from a butch fishmonger to a tiny child bawling their eyes out, a shot that was just on the acceptable side of cheesy. Michael and Susan share their loss of sense together, and the relationship gets a little stronger.
And then things get worse. Everyone’s taste disappears. The manager of Michael’s restaurant sits desolate outside and drunk on a hundred year old whisky that now is no more value than water, apart from the fact he’s absolutely hammered. The rest of the film unfolds from a genuinely original premise: How does the world survive when their bodies are failing them? The answer is an inventive although not quite barnstorming romance that centres on survival, community, and the biggest message of all: Love.
What is brilliant about Perfect Sense is that it manages the end of the world without grim surrender or depressing displays of everything going to shit. Instead, it paces itself moving from moments of loss as each sense disappears or the attacks that prelude each loss break Michael and Susan away from each other into moments of genuine hope and survival. His business should be officially finished and his livelihood destroyed when the world loses its sense of taste, but Michael stays defiant. He invents entirely new dishes that are crunchy, smooth and complimenting people’s sense of touch, creating a new dining craze and keeping the community going. Director David McKenzie and Writer Kim Aakeson manage to keep the hope running throughout the script even when the more serious loss of hearing occurs and the world starts to become even more insular. People keep themselves going, even start preparing for the inevitable and the next sense going.
That is not to say that there are not problems with Perfect Sense. First of all, it lacks bite. While the film does a good job of creating a compelling drama with characters you genuinely care about, not enough is done to create a conflict in the film. While the film occasionally veers towards darker moments, including an attack which causes outright anger before hearing is lost and fights break out; it never really develops any further. There are some obligatory shots of people looting and some crazy fanatics, but in a film where the survival of the human race is in the balance, the stakes never really feel sufficiently high enough until the final twenty minutes.
Some of the scenes we’re also set up in a way that seemed unintentional. David McKenzie’s handling of the loss of hearing, including Michael holed up in his house become slightly amusing when he is startled by a man in a suit wielding government rations. While I felt the humour was for the most part welcome in a film about impending death, I struggled to wonder whether the scene was meant to be funny or serious. Having said that the next day I sat through 2 hours of unrelenting misery in ‘The Divide’ that I warmed to those comedic moments much more.
When it is touching, it is successful in large part to Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, whose acting ability is tested well, especially during the ‘attacks’ in which they are forced to into hysterics without dropping into melodrama. David McKenzie also manages to work well with each attack, framing each attack of despair, sorrow, anger and happiness without dropping a giant block of cheese onto the film, which for a romantic disaster movie, is quite the feat.
Although it doesn’t quite deliver the big knockout blow that would make this a classic, Perfect Sense is an interesting and inventive look at a genuinely original concept. Considering how much tired old ground it is forced to navigate in bringing this story to life, it deserves kudos. Worth a watch.
