Perfume

Sometimes, maybe usually, the expectation thing works against you in movies. But with Perfume, I had low expectations and high hopes, and that turned out to be a winning combo.

There were problems with the movie for sure -- the rapturous smell moments lagged towards the middle, Grenouille's epiphany about himself came too late, the last two scenes were a a tad difficult to take seriously, and the very last scene wasn't necessary. Some of the historical staging was really transparent and not so believable, and some of Hoffman's scenes were laughably bad -- his accent was like half-Brooklyn, half-bad Italian -- though he managed to play the character really endearingly at other moments. So what that all boils down to is three things:

1) I wanted to like the movie so badly that I was able to look past those things
2) Tom Tykwer is an incredible director
and
3) Ben Whishaw is a hypontic screen presence and he was perfect for the part

Truthfully, despite all of the problems, I do think it's possible to be totally enthralled by this movie. There are many beautiful moments in it -- especially this one of Laura riding a horse from afar, that was a breathtaking shot -- the acting for the most part is spot on, the story is as incredible as the book it came from. Tykwer's imagining of the rapturous smell moments is genius. But you have to be able to let go and allow yourself to fall into a very story-ish, sometimes exaggerated reality. It asks as much of you almost as The Lord of the Rings does in suspension of disbelief, and it isn't a fantasy per se. That's not easy for everybody to do, especially with so many other flaws, but if you can, the rewards are worth it.