Perfect Sense: Movie Spoiler Summary (after capsule review). The very dystopic concept of Perfect Sense is ultimately a lesson in learning to appreciate the senses we have and how easily it is for us as a human race to accept certain changes we have no control over and submit to them as a new normal. We as human beings rely so much on our senses, that without, we lose the ability to relate to each other and build healthy relationships. It puts up several obstacles in Susan (Eva Green) and Michaels’ (Ewan McGregor) relationship. And there is some wonderfully maudlin music, but the all-encompassing reach of the director gives the film a forced and generic feel. It doesn't help either that some of the scenes are just ridiculously stupid and/or gross. But, maybe that's the point. Desperation ain't pretty. However, the film just seemed like one big excuse to get Green and McGregor naked for half the film. If there is one thing this film taught me is that Green is a force to be reckoned with. While she doesn’t do anything especially extraordinarily, she undeniably holds the screen with her presence. And, I hadn’t realized that she has actually taken on several projects, albeit some low-quality, where her character drives the story. Mixed with her higher-budget affairs (I haven’t seen her career-defining performance in the Casino Royale remake), me thinks that Green will soon figure into the Oscar game in a few years. Just. A. Hunch.
[Image via ChiTownFlix]
[Image via ChiTownFlix]
Katy Engels narrates [Thank you to anonymous for the correction] this story about epidemiologist Susan (Eva Green, in all her black mascara and eye-liner glory) in Perfect Sense, starting with a scene on a boardwalk with her spitting from a bridge. She gets introspective and talks about all the different things in the world, while footage plays illustrating her monologue. Ewan McGregor as Michael wakes up to the nude Green and softly kicks her out of bed. He claims he can’t sleep with another person under the covers. At the beach, Susan walks with her sister (or mother) and throws stones at seagulls. In a cool shot, Michael rides his boat and then wheels out some contents, while melancholy music plays. He meets with a guy, who shares a cigarette and mumbles something, perhaps about the brand of tobacco. A colleague Steven Montgomery (Stephen Dillane) bumps into Susan at a parking garage. They walk into a hospital and a woman grabs their attention as she has a loved one who is suffering from a strange affliction.
We hear the voice of Barack Obama and other figures manipulated to make it seem like they’re talking about this epidemic. Michael rides his bike around Glasgow. There is a great deal of emptiness. The restaurant is slow. James (McGregor’s old Trainspotting costar Ewen Bremner—you know the one who had the scene with the bed-sheets) breaks out the laughing gas and has a little fun. They all leave. Susan arrives home where Michael is standing outside his work. She addresses him as “sailor” and then goes on to explain the origins. He invites her in: “People aren’t eating in restaurants these days and we’ve got a lot of spare food.” She sits on the counter and wolfs down his cuisine and then starts to break down over the thought of her father. He hands her a tissue letting her know that it’s clean, before she engages in some more laughable crying. He takes her home across the street through the rain. They end up in bed together, but he still has his tank top on, so that doesn’t mean anything. But, then, I’m sorry, this is ridiculous, he starts crying too. This is the point of the film where it officially becomes a parody of itself and/or a skit on SNL. The next morning, Michael wakes up to find Susan at her kitchen table. “It’s gone, the smell, all gone.” She serves him some coffee. He references their “crazy evening,” lights up a fag, and leaves.
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| Ewan pre-Trainspotting |
At the lab, Susan and Steven examine cages upon cages of rabbits and discuss Michael. The restaurant regroups and prepares to cook for a clientele who have lost the of smell, along with them. Susan narrates another one of her montages full of photographs, including one of McGregor from his youth, “The food becomes sweeter, saltier, more sweet, more sour, you get used to it.” Michael carries on a conversation with Susan while he rides his bike around the alley below her apartment. They take a stroll and watch a spoken-word street performer who plays the violin. They go back to her apartment and have some adult fun. He tells her how he can’t sleep in bed with another person, and she ultimately kicks him out of hers. He gives her his business card and rides his bike to a cemetery where he meets the parents of a former relationship. The mother chides him for forgetting flowers for “her.” Susan walks with her sister.
James talks about fruit-flavored oxygen with Michael before Susan goes into yet another one of her narrated montages discussing religious idolatry and UFOs. At the lab, Stephen begins to have a reaction and Susan helps administer a sedative. In the parking garage, a blonde assists Susan who begins to have trouble breathing. Likewise, at the restaurant, Michael is on the floor going a little bit mad. Rather comically, Susan begins eating flower pedals and everyone at the restaurant devours all the food before them in grotesque fashion, complete with sound effects. It’s one big mass festival of consuming anything chewable or drinkable around them, including a jug of olive oil. “This is how the sense of taste disappears from our world,” Susan explains. Michael and Susan end up in bed together. They make love some more, seeing how Michael can’t sleep in bed with another person there, so he needs to pass the time somehow. That, and he’s with Eva Green. Duh.
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| Shaving cream for dessert with a bonus bar of soap |
The more optimistic Michael has a discussion with a colleague about their low customer turnout. Susan chimes in again with a narrated montage and explains, “Slowly, things returned to normal and life goes on.” The mood improves at the restaurant. Susan shaves Michael in the bathtub and they begin to consume the shaving cream. Dried off, they dance and exchange secrets. They share a laugh about their shortcomings as people and Susan labels them, “Mr. and Mrs. Asshole,” before they go out to a club.
Susan and her colleagues converse with a scientist via a monitor. He starts to panic and the world then experiences Severe Hearing Loss Syndrome (SHLS), complete with narrated montage care of Susan. Michael and Susan are back in bed and he takes a Polaroid of the two of them. There’s business at the hospital between Steven and Susan. Officials shut down the restaurant, including one guy with a hair across his ass, and are given orders as to how they can proceed. Kicked out of her apartment, wearing surgical masks, Susan and Michael drive to his place. He starts to wig out and tells her, “You’re just a pair of ears and a mouth, an asshole and a cunt.” He keeps repeating “Fat and fucking flour” while damaging his apartment. Naturally, she high-tales the Hell out of there. On the streets, she listens to the cries of people while Michael loses his ability to hear after his tirade. He’s approached by men in quarantine outfits and forced back into his apartment. Michael tries to call Susan while she’s busy going mad at the hospital. He watches his television inform deaf people to stay at home. The rabbits run rampant at the hospital with their monkey friend when Susan wakes up deaf herself. At this point, I imagine that the last twenty minutes will not have any audio, which is a God-send, but I fear that won’t stop an unnarrated montage from happening, as life settles into the soundless frontier. But, as it turns out, there is narration. Drats. This is the part of the movie, where, like movies with subtitles, you have to watch and can’t just get by listening to.
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| She really is gorgeous |
Michael visits the restaurant where he frightens one of his coworkers. Susan now lives with her sister and they communicate via tablet and pen, as does everyone else who doesn’t know sign language. Predictably, business returns to normal. Michael frequents a club to try to feel some music. And we get another narrated montage from Susan. People smarten up and start practicing what it’s like to be blind (you know it's coming). Susan enjoys her nieces and nephews. Michael tries to locate Susan, but she’s busy with her narration about the Ice Age and warns that blindness is next (Not to be confused with the awful Fernando Meirelles film), naturally. The montage becomes much more optimistic and shows people enjoying each other’s company. Susan and Michael reunite and we get to see how pretty Green is, before they both lose their sight. “It’s dark now, but they feel each other’s breath … oblivious to the world around them.”
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