'Perfect Sense' – Ewan McGregor And Eva Green Experience The End Of The World [Sundance Review]

Before the Sundance Film Festival started, I watched the trailer for David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense and dismissed it. The trailer was confusing, didn't sell the concept very well and kind of turned me off. But over the course of the week in Park City, people were beginning to buzz a bit about the film so I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm happy to report I was wrong.

Starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green as two random people who develop a relationship amiss a pandemic where everyone in the world loses their sense one by one, Perfect Sense is a well-shot, well-acted, frightening look at what might happen as the world crumbles. The disease in the film has a wicked sense of humor but as it evolves and unleashes itself on the human race, Perfect Sense helps to reveal the best in us all.

Perfect Sense is a tough film to talk about without getting into details. What you can say is that as humans systematically lose their senses, the film surmises that we are, by and large, a optimistic race. Humans take what they have, make the best of it and look at the bright side of things. Our window into this message are the lives of Michael and Susan, played by McGregor and Green.

Michael is the head chef at a restaurant and Susan is a epidemiologist who is among the first to find out about the disease. As Michael and Susan slowly begin to trust each other, and maybe love each other, Mackenzie fills the frame beautifully giving us a kind of visual overload to go along with the emotions of the story.

The problem with Perfect Sense is that while it develops this insanely interesting sci-fi story about a possible end-of-the-world scenario, the relationship between the main characters takes a back seat. It's far more entertaining to see what happens next with the disease than with the by-the-numbers romance set within it. In fact, the disease has a much more well-rounded arc than the characters do.

Still, depending on how you look at Perfect Sense, the film has a beautiful personal message for us all. It makes us appreciate what we carry with us every second of every day. Perfect Sense was picked up by IFC Films during the festival so you'll get a chance to see it soon.

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10