'Perfect Sense': Mixing love and chaos

 British director David Mackenzie hit all the right buttons with his charming, bittersweet 2007 romance, Mister Foe, then went for lewd, broad comedy for the masses in 2009's Spread.

His new picture, Perfect Sense, isn't as bad. But it isn't to die for either.

Perfect Sense is a very conventional love story wrapped into a slightly more quirky, apocalyptic yarn and lightly dusted with a touch of true originality.

Michael (Ewan McGregor) is a conceited chef who fancies himself a ladies' man. A cad, charmer, seducer, he goes through women like there's no tomorrow. Susan (the ever-divine Eva Green) is a conceited, brilliant epidemiologist depressed by her inability to find a good man. The two strangers connect during a deeply moving, intense, empathetic moment of shared grief caused by a mysterious pandemic. Those affected go through intense grief, then lose their sense of smell. It eventually happens to every living soul.

Then, something happens to everyone's sense of taste. Will the other senses go, too? People panic, riot, kill one another. But our lovers only fall more deeply in love. The sex scenes aren't original, but they are hot.

The film loses its charm with annoying sequences that have a narrator explain to us "The Meaning of it All" and then tell us "What Really Matters" in life: Love. Love. Love.

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