[yasr_overall_rating]
A foul smell from his kid’s pajamas prompts director Jon Whelan to embark on a madcap journey from the retailer to the laboratory, through corporate boardrooms, down back alleys, and into the halls of Congress, all trying to protect the darkest secrets of the chemical industry. You won’t like what you smell.
“Who doesn’t sniff a product before buying it?” Jon Whelan states at the start of his investigative report/socially-conscious documentary. A legitimate point. I know I twist off the occasional shampoo cap at Walgreens, to take a little whiff prior to selecting the optimal scent. Whelan’s account proceeds to demonstrate how those pleasing odors of Wacky Melons and Caribbean Ocean Waves may actually lead to cancer, birth defects, and other long-lasting physical ailments. Deodorants, shower gels, detergents, dishwashing liquids, your girlfriend’s new Chanel perfume – all those products contain the mysterious ingredient – “fragrance” – the chemicals of which are undisclosed by the corporations that manufacture them. I’ll think twice now before indulging in Watermelon Frenzy.
Whelan proceeds to state that his doc is an amalgamation of “a love story, a mystery, a crime drama, a wake up call, and a farce.” I’ll try to compartmentalize my review into corresponding segments. The Love Story involves his wife, Heather, who died from cancer in 2009, and is by far the most affecting aspect of the film, involving truly lyrical passages. “My wife, Heather, was perfectly healthy…And then she wasn’t,” Whelan narrates. “She left things better than she found them.” Haunting archive imagery of Heather reappears throughout the film, infusing it with a much-needed emotional heft. After a journey of self-discovery through the United States, Whelan buys his two daughters pajamas for Christmas from the popular store Justice, and notices a weird smell…
Here’s where the Mystery begins: fueled by his wife’s death, Whelan goes on a crusade, to discover what “kind of chemicals would give off this sort of smell”. When he can’t get a straight answer over the phone – it’s enigmatically referred to by the manufacturers as “proprietary information” – he proceeds to send the PJs to a lab for a chemical analysis – and discovers that they contain flame retardant chemicals, banned for decades and known to cause cancer.
“Stink!” then morphs into the Crime Drama, with the corporate “crime lords,” such as Justice, or Unilever (the giant behind Axe), unwilling – or unable – to disclose the secret formula behind those chemicals. We, consumers, are enamored by the “mystique” behind the fragrance, but the lavender that we think is grown in gale-swept, vast fields of France is in fact manufactured in charcoal-black New Jersey factories. The “crime lords” get away with making them, because those chemicals are not regulated by the federal government.
One can’t blame Whelan for not going the distance. He attempts to contact the CEO of Justice, and even buys a share of the company to get some answers. He finally attends a shareholder meeting and addresses the CEO directly, in one of the doc’s highlights. Another highlight involves the absurdity of a Breast Cancer Foundation selling perfume, which contains cancer-causing chemicals, to raise money for breast cancer (this is where the doc ventures into Farce).
“Stink!” is chock-full of testimonies and facts, provided by experts in a variety of scientific fields. Christophe Laudamiel, “Master Perfumer” behind the Abercrombie & Fitch scent (that overwhelms your senses every time you step into that goddamn store), shares diverting tidbits, like: ingredients that start off smelling like sewage can end up “smelling like hazelnuts”. There are also personal accounts, such as Brandon’s – a young man, whose life almost ended from a reaction to some chemical scent in an Axe deodorant. Whelan assaults us with data: “women and teen girls typically use up to 20 products a day; men and boys – about half that”; the ingredients used in Chanel No5 are the same used in toilet bowl cleaner; phthalates, found in most of our everyday supplies, interfere with the function of our hormones (no wonder the smell of gasoline turns me on!) and can mutate our DNA… “We are quietly becoming genetically modified by toxic chemicals,” Whelan gravely states.
While “Stink!” runs around in circles sometimes, hammering the same point over and over again, Whelan’s aspirations are commendable. With a mix of archival footage, interviews and graphics, he traces the recorded birth of unregulated chemicals, sometime back in the 1950s, through the uprising protests of the 1980s, to the current day, and the introduction of the “Prop 65” California act, which warns people about cancer-causing chemicals. Whelan urges us to use caution, and reminds us, that there are politicians fighting the good cause, such as Hon. Steve Israel, who states that “the fundamental problem is that no one knows what those chemicals are…Inform them, and then let them make whatever decisions they want.” It’s politicians like him, Whelan argues, that can lead to fixing the toxic substances control act, and companies disclosing all the ingredients on their products.
The doc’s budget limitations are apparent, Whelan never getting access to any major political leaders or CEOs of the companies he condemns – his most “exciting” interviews occur when he startles his subjects in hallways and proceeds to interrogate them about chemical regulations – an approach that left a sour taste in my mouth. He also extends the running time with news reports, extracts from political debates and redundant visuals.
Like this year’s earlier “That Sugar Film” (read my review here), “Stink!” is an informative, if unspectacular, documentary that gets its point across. Unlike Damon Gameau’s saccharine study though, the subject matter here is a bit more focused, and cuts deeper. We can control the amount of sugar that goes into our bodies – but how can we control something we don’t know? “Stink!” does lack some of “Sugar”’s playfulness, and its didactic approach, overwhelming us with dreadful facts and expository graphics, can be wearying at times. For a film with an exclamation point in its title, it certainly could use an injection of adrenaline and humor.
While it may not entirely live up to its claims of being “a love story, a mystery and a crime drama,” as a Wake-Up Call, “Stink!” gets the job done. I’m convinced. I’m going to get in so much trouble for throwing away my wife’s new perfume…
“Stink!” opens in L.A. December 4th
