Perfect Sense

Starring: Eva Green, Ewan McGregor, Connie Nielsen, Stephen Dillane, Denis Lawson, Alastair Mackenzie
Directed by: David Mackenzie
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Romance, Science Fiction
2012

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A chef (Ewan McGregor) and a virologist (Eva Green) fall in love in a world where people are losing their senses, one-by-one.

Review:

Tim: Perfect Sense is a movie that almost no one saw. It has one of the smallest box office tallies I've ever seen. As we all know, though, box office doesn't equal quality. While the film is small, I thought it was well done and told a unique, entertaining story. It's not the best movie ever, but it was enjoyable. I liked this film.

There's two different aspects to the film and both are done well. First is the love story between Ewan McGregor and Eva Green. This was done very well. We get to know both of these characters and we identify with and like them. So many sci-fi movies make the mistake of not fully developing their characters. That's not the case here. Regardless of the craziness happening around them, both characters felt believable to me. I'd be interested in watching their relationship no matter the genre of the film. That is an achievement. McGregor is almost always good and he delivers another strong performance here. He's a good guy, but also a bit of a scoundrel. I loved the complexity of his character and he has a few scenes where he's able to convey real pain and emotion. He's likable in this film. Eva Green is also a very strong actress, and she gives a good performance here. Like McGregor, I believed her character and enjoyed the complicated nature of her. She interacts very well with McGregor, but stands on her own as an interesting, worthwhile character. Their interactions are the highlight of the film. I really enjoyed the story of their romance.

On top of that, we get this very cool story about the world losing their senses. This might have been done before, but I've certainly never heard of it. It's a great sci-fi twist to the story. The movie does an outstanding job of not just showing the loss of the sense, but how the world adjusts afterwards. I found this to be the most fascinating aspect of the movie. Many sci-fi films would focus on the coolness of the loss and fail to capitalize on exploring what that means for civilization. I loved how the loss of each sense was accompanied by a strange action. It made you wonder how our sense are connected to the brain and how much we rely on our senses to give us the "sense" of being human. I loved seeing how the loss of smell changed the way we interacted as people. The loss of taste means the dining experience changes completely- instead focused on visuals, textures, and temperatures. It's all fascinating and a bit scary to think about how the loss of even one sense would alter our world.

While the movie would have been helped by a bigger budget, the story is still fairly powerful. There are a few smaller subplots that were unnecessary, and the movie does drag in a few spots. Still, overall, Perfect Sense is a film worth seeing. It's also a reminder of how many movies go unwatched by me every year. In a given year, I see around 100-115 movies. There's typically over 600 movies that come out every year. Even by doing research and trying to cast as wide a net as possible, there's always good movies that escape me. A film like Perfect Sense would almost never be on someone's radar, so it wouldn't show up on mine. I'm very lucky to have had someone recommend it to me- it might not be great, but it's absolutely worth seeing.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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