

When the protagonist wasn’t narrating, she was reading internet articles out loud. At the 20-minute mark, I began to wonder if the narration would continue for the entirety of the film. Then it continues with more of her narration.

The movie starts with the protagonist narrating. There’s even an episode of Criminal Minds that did a better job at capturing the essence of Süskind’s novel. If you’re looking to watch a good adaptation of the book, you’re better off streaming the period thriller Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), starring Alan Rickman. And when I say “loosely,” I mean the plot has almost nothing to do with the book apart from featuring a killer obsessed with scents. The film is very loosely based on a popular German novel by author Patrick Süskind. Their two stories become connected most unusually. Written and directed by Nils Willbrandt, The Perfumier features Emilia Schüle as Sunny, a German police detective who lacks a sense of smell, and Ludwig Simon as Dorian, a perfume maker obsessed with creating the scent of love.
