Falling in love, as the world falls apart. David McKenzie's Glasgow-set tale of love in a time of apocalypse sees a welcome reteaming of Young Adam's director and star, Ewan McGregor.
Science-fiction. Why can't it be more realistic, more involving, and more relevant to our day-to-day lives? Why can't it be (for want of a better term) more human? Well, David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense seeks to answer those kind of complaints about the genre by presenting a very sci-fi idea - a global epidemic of a disease that gradually strips away your senses, one by one - but viewed through the lens of a very grounded and relatable love story between two very sympathetic and likeable leads.
Set in Glasgow (again, eschewing the glamour and Hollywood-ness that would be offered by more high-profile locations), the movie sees a chef, Michael (Ewan McGregor), begin a romance with a doctor, Susan (Eva Green, perhaps best known as Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale), at the same time as they try to cope with the effects of the weird sense-sapping epidemic. But whilst the disease certainly plays an important role in the movie, underpinning everything that happens from beginning to end, it isn't really the focus of the film. Rather, it's merely the backdrop against which Michael and Susan's relationship plays out: the film is far more interested in the smaller human details of how their romance and their daily lives would be affected by such a condition.
(You just know that somewhere else in this world there's a story about a Tom Cruise-type character who's running around trying to uncover the source of the illness, and save humanity by finding a cure - but this isn't that movie.)
Indeed, it's the smaller moments that really hold the appeal of the film. For example, Michael's restaurant constantly finds itself having to adapt to the changing needs of its patrons. When they lose their sense of smell, the food has to become much spicier; and when they lose their sense of taste too, the restaurant survives by offering people food that has an interesting texture, or which makes an interesting sound when eaten. It might not sound particularly thrilling, but it suggests that writer Kim Fupz Aakeson has given a certain amount of thought to what the real-life repercussions would be for a disease that affects people so fundamentally, and how to present those problems in a thought-provoking way.
The film also benefits from a (slightly contrived) device that sees people experience a burst of extreme emotion immediately before they lose one of their senses, as a side-effect of the disease. The nature of this emotion varies: sometimes it's euphoria and joy, but sometimes it's depression or anger. The device leads to the movie's quieter periods being regularly punctuated by moments of high drama, enabling some painful revelations about both of the lead characters that help to add substantial depth and shade to their personalities, and to the pair's relationship.
Interspersed between the film's scenes are some flashy montages narrated by an unseen character who muses on the nature of humanity and human relationships, and on the importance of senses as our conduit to experiencing the world. Occasionally these segments get a bit cod-philosophical, and address the film's themes in a slightly too on-the-nose manner, but they make for a refreshing (and visually interesting) break from the rest of the action.
In conclusion, then, this is an interesting and thought-provoking little film that takes a subject that could come off as depressing and imbues it with a certain sense of wonder and hope. If there's any core message to the film, it's that life goes on; that humanity finds a way; and that the pleasure and pain of our relationships is more important to us than any tangible sensations. That it manages to convey this message through blending a big sci-fi idea and a very grounded, personal story is to its credit. Even if you don't think of yourself as a fan of science-fiction, Perfect Sense could change your mind.
Ravi Nijjar
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Drama starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green as a couple falling in love against the backdrop of a catastrophic neurological pandemic. Michael (McGregor), a chef at an upmarket Glaswegian restaurant, lives a fairly normal life, bantering with his work colleague, James (Ewen Bremner), and putting in long hours in the kitchen. Things begin to change for Michael when a strange, seemingly unstoppable, virus begins robbing human beings of their sense faculties - beginning with the sense of smell. Epidemiologist Susan (Green) arrives in Glasgow to study the virus, which has other strange effects such as increase in emotion and a tendency towards melancholy feelings. As the pair gradually fall under the spell of the virus, so they fall under the spell of each other, and witness together the apparently inexorable deterioration of the human world.
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