Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, is a movie with an interesting take on the horror genre. It doesn’t rely on jump scares, excessive blood and gore, or dramatic scenes to make the story. However, the unnerving and single-mindedness of the main character makes for a creepy film all the same, even if it doesn’t quite match up to the book.

Birth Of A Murderer

Perfume the movie, as the full name suggests, focuses on the story of a murderer. His name is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and he stands accused of murdering several women.

The story starts at his execution before moving back in time. Grenouille was raised in an orphanage and has an unnatural sense of smell.

As he gets older, he works with a tanner and is sent to deliver to a place in Paris. That’s when he’s first introduced to perfume.

However, it’s a redheaded girl, and her scent, which interests him the most. While trying to get a better sniff, he ends up accidentally strangling her.

The Cast

Her lovely scent fades away with her life, and Grenouille grows obsessed with recreating the smell. He starts murdering other women to create the perfect scent before eventually being captured for his crimes.

Ben Whishaw (The Lobster) plays Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, but he’s not the only notable name in the Perfume movie.

Dustin Hoffman (Finding Neverland) and Alan Rickman (Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) are two other notable faces throughout the film.

The People Behind The Camera

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a movie based on a novel of the same name by Patrick Süskind in 1985. Andrew Birkin (The Name of the Rose), Bernd Eichinger (Downfall), and Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas) worked together on the screenplay, and Tykwer also directed the movie. Bernd was a friend of Süskind, but it still took him 15 years to obtain the film rights.

While critics didn’t much like the film, giving it an average score of 59 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, fans liked it a little better. They gave it a 74 percent.

This isn’t such a surprise as the movie was actually considered unfilmable, to the point that even the author wasn’t sure it could be done well, hence why he was so hesitant to give out the rights.

The Smells Of Perfume

The main reason the movie was so hard to adapt was because of the main character. It’s a horror told from the point-of-view of the murderer, one who doesn’t show much expression, doesn’t talk much, and is pretty much only ever thinking about smells.

However, it’s also a book that focuses on smells, and while it’s easy enough to describe smells in a book, it’s not something easy to translate into a movie.

While the Perfume movie didn’t manage to pull off describing the scents well or bringing the character to life and making him like he was in the book, they did manage to make a pretty good horror flick about a murderer that feels creepy and thrilling.

Stream It Now

While the movie isn’t a perfect adaptation, and has some flaws, it’s actually still quite an interesting film that’s worth a watch if you don’t mind darker and more gory scenes. The story is vivid in its horrors, and not only the ones that Grenouille is performing on the young girls.

The Perfume movie is available to watch on Hoopla for free with a library card, Kanopy, or PlutoTV.