Was a solid 10/10 film- untill the ending.

IMO this movie was stupid since the begining but in the end, my my... the hell was that?...

that's just like your opinion stick to yours, your approval on mine isn't required

i'm with you OP. 4/10 because the ending was super retarded.

My experience was similar to yours. I think because, aside from the oddly superhuman olfactory gland, the story is rather realistic up until that point, and then you're hit with the magical craziness. I also was literally staring at the screen, repeating "WTF is happening?" out loud. It was bizarre.

I wish this had been corrected, either A) with an element of fantastical whimsy added into the first 90% of the movie so that it doesn't seem so out of nowhere, or B) by changing the ending to him just being executed. As someone else said--even if the orgy scene happened and then Jean snaps out of it by the bat thing crushing his bones, that would have been beautiful, brutal, and played into the idea of him being crazy but dedicated.

Still a great movie, but the ending is its flaw.

In fact, after watching it for the first time yesterday, I immediately recommended it to a friend, but I told her -- "Keep the mindset of 'it's a fairy tale'. You'll like the ending better that way."


I hear the drizzle of the rain. Like a memory it falls.

I was OK with the scene up untill Alan Ricman's character called him his son. It rendered the character and his daughter completely pointless. That's at least 1/5 of the screentime.

I totally agree with the OP. Good movie right up until that absurd ending.

I loved the ending, it is very satisfying and I'm incredibly happy the film was close to being true to the book (they disappointingly left out when he was creating scents to smell human - made from piss, sour cheese etc - which people reacted positively to instead of not noticing him or being afraid or hateful towards him). It's a great story but when you reach the end of the book the protagonist has achieved his goal, he has peaked. His life was nothing until he considered the possibility of creating that one heavenly scent. He spent 7 (give or take) years crawled into a ball at the end of a long tunnel inside of a mountain, in which he couldn't lay flat or even sit up in (this is by memory so he might have had a little more height). He was so far from civilization that not one person ventured even miles away (his nose would have smelt them) from his location. He only ventured out for bugs to eat and he would have stayed there if it wasn't for the possibility of creating that magical scent. It would have been extremely out of character for the protagonist to take advantage of his new found power, he hated people and didn't want to be around them, he didn't feel affinity to power or the love of people. At the end of the story depressed and suicidal as there are no greater scents to be discovered - his only reason for living.
His perfume created a reaction in which everybody felt extreme paradise and expressed their love in a massive orgy to show the power/paradise of the perfume he created and that he could have been a God, king etc. with it. When he pours the perfume on himself and the mob eat him it is shown as a true act of love, I cried reading the ending in the book. It's the perfect ending and I'm happy the ending didn't turn into something stupid that wouldn't have had any sense, the ending was 10/10. The protagonist couldn't live any other way, he was really only going through motions living apart from his search for the scent of paradise. He felt nothing and didn't care about anything such as how he was treated e.g. the tannery where he was treated as a slave that was expected to die within a year because of the deadly environment. So once the protagonist found the greatest scent, the only other foreseeable option that would have made any sense would have been for him to either die another way or to go back to the cave and live out the rest of his life crawled into a ball, both ways would have been disappointing.

One of the worst endings in motion picture history. Don't play that "Either you get it or you don't" crap either. You can only suspend disbelief so much. I like escapism and fantasy in movies. But this was beyond asinine. A few posts back, User ID 'OutForaWalkB-tch' had the perfect ending which lies in option 'B'. I recommend you read it if you haven't already. Also, am I to believe that the huge courtyard was catching that scent with the wave of a small portion? Rubbish!

In the book after the orgy he realises he has no more that he can do and so lets himself be eaten by a bunch of Parisians.

The whole thing is horrific - there can be no good ending to something as dark as this.