The Perfect Specimen is just weird enough to work

Is it worth your time?

If you like old-school screwball comedies where people talk really fast and everyone is constantly annoyed with each other, you’ll probably have a good time. If you need your movies to have a shred of realism or logical character growth, skip it. This isn't exactly Bad Company, but it’s got that same frantic energy that makes you wonder how these scripts even got finished.

Errol Flynn playing a guy who has been raised to be "perfect" is a choice. You can tell he’s trying to suppress that classic swashbuckler energy, but he mostly just looks like he’s holding in a sneeze for ninety minutes. It works, though. It’s funny seeing him act all stiff and moralistic while everyone else is running around like their hair is on fire.

The Grandmother Problem

May Robson plays the grandmother, and honestly, she’s the only one who seems to know what movie she’s in. She’s terrifying. Every time she stares at a portrait, I felt like she was judging my living room. She brings this weird, heavy weight to a movie that’s otherwise mostly about people shouting in cars.

There’s this one scene where Gerald is just standing there trying to explain his philosophy of life, and the camera lingers on his face for way too long. It’s supposed to be contemplative, I think? But it just looks like he forgot his next line. It’s charming in a 'we didn't have the budget for another take' kind of way. 🤷‍♂️

• Joan Blondell is doing the heavy lifting here.
• The dialogue is sharp, then suddenly it's like someone fell asleep at the typewriter.
• I really wanted to know what was in that suitcase they carry around.

The pacing is a total disaster, honestly. It starts as a slow burn about a guy living in a mansion, then shifts into a high-speed car chase that makes zero sense. It reminded me a bit of the frantic pacing in Darwin Was Right, where things just sort of happen because the plot says so. You stop asking "why" and just sort of roll with it.

Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it better than watching a blank screen? Sure. It feels like a movie made by people who were bored on a Tuesday and decided to just film whatever ridiculous scenario they could dream up before lunch. Sometimes, that’s all you need.

The ending feels like a shrug. It just kind of stops. No big resolution, no grand speech, just a scene that ends and then the credits roll. I kind of respect that. It’s almost like the movie got tired of itself. 😅