Scent of a Woman

Scent of a Woman is worth the evening, provided an appetite for Al Pacino at full volume comes with it. Martin Brest’s drama is funny, touching and longer than it needs to be, with a leading performance whose appetite for attention becomes part of the pleasure. The weekend promised by Lt. Col. Frank Slade includes fast cars, the tango and expensive comforts, with Charlie Simms accompanying him. It is a useful arrangement for a film that wants to indulge Frank while asking us to look past his force of personality.

Pacino plays Frank with a relish that can be entertaining and exhausting within the same scene. He makes the man’s abrasiveness funny without entirely protecting us from how unpleasant it would be to endure. The hurt beneath that behaviour matters, and Pacino is persuasive when he lets it complicate our enjoyment of him. We do not need every flourish, however. Brest sometimes lets him hold our attention well after a scene has made its point.

Chris O’Donnell’s Charlie is essential to making this tolerable, and frequently more affecting than the louder performance beside him. O’Donnell gives Pacino something to respond to without competing for emphasis, which helps their companionship feel like a relationship we might care about. His restraint is welcome. In a familiar drama about an unlikely pair, that quieter presence keeps us interested even when the writing starts preparing another lesson for our benefit.

Donald E. Thorin’s cinematography gives the weekend’s expensive pleasures an appeal we can understand. Angelo P. Graham’s production design is equally good at making Frank’s indulgence seem inviting rather than merely wasteful. We were moved by the tango. Pacino makes Frank’s pleasure in dancing feel immediate, and Brest allows the activity itself to hold our attention without labouring its importance. We could have done with more of that ease elsewhere.

The length is harder to defend: 156 minutes gives this companionship more room than Bo Goldman’s screenplay can consistently fill. Editors Harvey Rosenstock, Michael Tronick and William Steinkamp allow the performances space, but too many emphatic moments receive time we would rather spend getting to know Charlie. Thomas Newman’s music adds warmth, though there are passages where the feeling already seems sufficiently clear. We wanted less encouragement from the score and more confidence that the actors had done enough.

Goldman is working in a tradition of dramas in which a difficult companion provides an education, and the pleasures here are largely those we expect. That familiarity need not be a fault; there is satisfaction in watching two actors make an old arrangement convincing. The trouble comes when the writing insists on the importance of what we have already understood. Brest is better at keeping Frank interesting than at making the film’s lessons feel unforced, and the effort to persuade us becomes tiring.

There is enough humour and discomfort in Pacino’s performance to keep the sentiment from becoming entirely cosy. O’Donnell deserves equal thanks for giving us someone whose company does not demand such stamina. Choose it when there is time for an expansive character drama and some patience to spare.