Frank Slade has a plan. It includes a weekend of fast cars, the tango, high living and a loaded forty five. And Charlie is coming along for the ride.
Overview
Charlie Simms is a student at a private preparatory school who comes from a poor family. To earn the money for his flight home to Gresham, Oregon for Christmas, Charlie takes a job over Thanksgiving looking after retired U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a cantankerous middle-aged man who lives with his niece and her family.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.9/10
IMDb: 8.0/10
Letterboxd: 3.94/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
Metacritic: 57
TMDB: 7.8/10
Director
Martin Brest
Production
Universal Pictures, City Light Films
Cast
Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, James Rebhorn, Gabrielle Anwar, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Venture, Bradley Whitford, Ron Eldard, Rochelle Oliver, Margaret Eginton, Tom Riis Farrell, Nicholas Sadler, Todd Louiso, Matt Smith, Gene Canfield, Frances Conroy, June Squibb, Sally Murphy, Michael Santoro, Anh Duong
Curator Review
Verdict
A glossy, old-school prestige drama that works best as a volatile two-hander: a lonely, self-destructive veteran and the anxious prep-school kid who gets pulled into his orbit. It’s overlong and occasionally melodramatic, but the performances, moral tension, and big emotional payoff make it a durable crowd-pleaser.
Best for
fans of character-driven dramas
viewers who like mentor-protégé dynamics
people who enjoy emotional, speech-heavy prestige movies
audiences drawn to flawed, larger-than-life performances
Skip if
you dislike heightened, theatrical acting
you want a lean, realistic drama
you’re allergic to inspirational Oscar-bait energy
you prefer subtle character studies over big speeches
Overview
Scent of a Woman is built around contrast: privilege and hardship, discipline and chaos, youth and exhaustion. The setup is simple, but the movie keeps finding new friction in the relationship between Charlie and Frank, turning a Thanksgiving weekend into a crash course in dignity, regret, and self-respect.
Worth noting
It’s also a very 1990s prestige drama, in the best and worst senses. The movie can be blunt and overcooked, and it clearly wants its emotional beats to land hard. But Martin Brest gives it enough momentum and warmth that the excess becomes part of the appeal rather than a dealbreaker.
Bottom line
The film endures because it understands the pleasure of watching a volatile personality fill every room he enters. Frank Slade is abrasive, funny, wounded, and impossible to ignore, and the movie uses that force to push Charlie toward a more adult sense of courage. Even when it strains for grandeur, it remains an effective, highly watchable drama with real emotional payoff.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Jay (3★) · 5261 likes
al pacino be like: i may be blind but i can see wealth privilege
🩸⚔️🩸 (3.5★) · 5178 likes
he is blind and he wants pussy and he wants to die (i had a nice time)
anna (4★) · 4903 likes
me: ):
*al pacino saying yabba dabba doo when he gets out of a car*
me: (:
eve (3.5★) · 4072 likes
al pacino traumatizes a 17 year old for 2 1/2 hours