Al Pacino had been Oscar-nominated several times prior to his lead role as Lt. Col. Frank Slade, a blind military veteran, but on the same night that Clint Eastwood also landed the much-coveted ‘Uncle Oscar’ (which is what somebody described the first Academy Award as when it was conceived) for UNFORGIVEN, he could see the light, even if the character he played couldn’t even see that.
In SCENT OF A WOMAN, Slade is chaperoned by troubled local scholarship student Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell, Robin in BATMAN FOREVER) who is keen to earn some money to pay for a trip back home for Christmas, so takes up the job advertised on the school notice board to look after Slade at the request of his family who want to go away.
Simms is troubled due to an incident which he and another student, the more privileged George Willis Jr. (Philip Seymour Hoffman), witnessed from other students who vandalised the new luxury car that the Baird Principal, Trask (James Rebhorn) had got on the eve of Thanksgiving Weekend.
Trask summons both students to a meeting, warning that if they don’t disclose who the culprits were, they will both be expelled. Trask tries to sweeten Simms by offering a quick route to Harvard on a special exemption, but Simms is reluctant to divulge who it was.
Slade is a very challenging person, not least in terms of his blindness, but he clearly has greater clarity of vision, despite his disability and takes Simms on what he defines as ‘a tour of simple pleasures’ whilst staying at one of New York’s finest hotels. Meanwhile, Willis Jr tells Simms by phone from a vacation in Vermont that he needs time to ‘figure out the moves’ with regard to Trask, but privilege and class are about to take a plunge in terms of bond, coupled with Slade’s own darker concerns….
Directed by Martin Brest, who had directed BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984) and scripted by Bo Goldman, who wrote the screenplay for the big-screen adaptation of Ken Kesey’s ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, SCENT OF A WOMAN is one of those joyous acting showcases that garner awards and was clearly one that Pacino relished as his comeback continued in films, which began back in 1989 with the New York-set police murder mystery SEA OF LOVE, co-starring Ellen Barkin (THE BIG EASY) and John Goodman (TV’s ROSEANNE, the 1994 film version of THE FLINTSTONES amongst others).
O’Donnell was a star on the rise at the time and has become more of a fixture on contemporary television. A nice score by Thomas Newman, who has scored some of the more recent James Bond films with Daniel Craig, adds to the charm.
The film’s stand-out scene is the tango that Slade does with young woman Donna (Gabrielle Anwar, from TV’s PRESS GANG and a Bond-esque yarn called IF LOOKS COULD KILL which was released as TEEN AGENT in the UK)