The colonel's ideas are not Politically Correct. On the other hand, he is not a sexist animal, either; he has an old-fashioned regard for women, mixed with yearning and fascination, and the respect of a gentleman who has lived his life in the military and never known a woman very well. He almost believes he can inhale a woman's scent and tell you all about her - what color her hair is, or her eyes, and whether she has a merry light in her eyes.
All of this is done against a backdrop of very serious drinking, which Charlie looks at with growing alarm. The movie does not make the mistake of making the colonel and the student into pals with instant camaraderie. Charlie keeps his distance. He is a little afraid of the colonel, and very afraid of what might happen to him.
They rent a limousine. They take a suite at the Waldorf. They talk. The colonel lectures. Charlie, who distrusts him, answers politely, remaining guarded. The colonel does not seem to notice.
They drink. They go to a hotel ballroom, where Charlie notices a beautiful young woman (Gabrielle Anwar), and the Colonel engages her in conversation and talks her into doing the tango with him. He's a pretty good dancer. He is even better as an old smoothie.
There is something so touching with him. All of his life, he confides to Charlie, he has dreamed of waking up beside a good and beautiful woman. The limo driver takes them to the address of a highly recommended call girl. Charlie waits in the car. The movie could have spoiled everything by going inside with the colonel, but it stays outside with Charlie, and when the colonel comes out again he says very little, but in it we can guess that he regards woman as the undiscovered country of all good and reassurance, a country he will never live in.
They arrive at a crisis, and Pacino and O'Donnell engage in the emotional equivalent of the showdown between Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men." It's quite a scene - the real conclusion of the movie, although Charlie's story still has to find its own conclusion, when the two men go back to the prep school. By the end of "Scent of a Woman," we have arrived at the usual conclusion of the coming-of-age movie, and the usual conclusion of the prep school movie. But rarely have we been taken there with so much intelligence and skill.
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