Martin Brest gets good drama from difficult company, giving his actors time to make uneven relationships convincing. We value that patience, though Scent of a Woman also shows his reluctance to end a conversation once it has done its work.
Fi1m perspective
In Scent of a Woman (1992), Al Pacino’s Frank Slade expects to do the talking, leaving Chris O’Donnell’s Charlie to work out how to answer him. Martin Brest gives both sides of that exchange time, even when one side is mostly listening. This is where we find him most persuasive: making an uneven relationship worth following through small changes in how two people treat each other. We warmed to the pair because Charlie’s patient responses made Slade’s abrasiveness something we could stay with. Brest trusts the actors to make familiar material interesting, and they do.
That interest in performers runs through a career that moved from Going in Style (1979), with George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg, to the action and comedy of Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Midnight Run (1988). The former put Eddie Murphy at its centre; the latter paired Robert De Niro with Charles Grodin in a road comedy. The buddy format suited Brest’s interest in mixing action, comedy and feeling.
Scent of a Woman shows both the benefit of that patience and its cost. Editors Harvey Rosenstock, Michael Tronick and William Steinkamp give Pacino and O’Donnell the space to establish a rhythm, but too many exchanges continue once we understand the balance between them. At 156 minutes, the film asks a narrow relationship to sustain more than it comfortably can. We do not need the difficult older man and the younger listener to surprise us, but we do need their conversations to move on. Brest is good at letting Charlie find an answer and less good at bringing Slade to a halt.
Later, Meet Joe Black (1998), with Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins, drew criticism for its length and uneven tone. Gigli (2003) was widely panned after studio-mandated rewrites and reshoots altered Brest’s original vision. That interference matters when assigning responsibility, though it cannot tell us whether the film he intended would have worked. Brest stopped directing after it, but that is no reason to dismiss the earlier films. Start with Scent of a Woman for the performances, provided nobody on the sofa is in a hurry.
Biography
Martin Brest (born 8 August 1951) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He was born in the Bronx, New York City, and studied at New York University and the American Film Institute.
Brest made his feature debut with Going in Style (1979). He directed the comedies Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Midnight Run (1988), followed by Scent of a Woman (1992), which he also produced. The film earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. He later directed Meet Joe Black (1998) and Gigli (2003). His student short Hot Dogs for Gauguin (1972) was selected for the National Film Registry.
