not to be confused with that bruce willis ghost story , the five senses is more along the lines of kieslowski lite . the lives of five canadians are connected by the sensations of touch , taste , smell , sound , and sight . they all reside in the same apartment complex , not unlike the lost souls wandering through the decalogue . each of the protagonists are faced with a glib moral crisis which must be resolved during the seemingly endless hour-and-forty-five-minute running time . ruth , a professional massage therapist ( gabrielle rose , the sweet hereafter ) , uses the sensation of touch -- get it ? -- to heal a wounded relationship with her daughter's former teacher ( molly parker , who saw , smelled , tasted , and touched dead people in kissed ) . sexy young socialite rona ( mary-louise parker , fried green tomatoes ) is able to communicate with her hot italian lover ( marco leonardi ) , who can't speak a word of english , through the magic of delicious food and , of course , some really great sex . you can cross taste off of your mental checklist , folks . on and on we go . there's the crimes and misdemeanors bit with the sensitive young eye doctor ( philippe volter , the double life of veronique ) who is going deaf . not blind . deaf . cue the orchestra . i can already hear fifty violins crying out to god . that covers both sight and sound , doesn't it ? most ridiculous is the story of a happy-go-lucky bisexual house cleaner ( daniel macivor ) who , undergoing a crisis of love , sets up a series of dates where he proceeds to smell his former romantic partners . ooo-la-la ! throw in a subplot about a missing child , and you've got some serious drama . writer-director jeremy podeswa approaches his story with solemnity which errs on the side of pretentiousness . the heavy-handed themes are so broad and predictable that the five senses induces laughs in all the wrong places . the clean , austere shots are more revelatory in showing how disconnected and empty these lives are , but that canadian sense of detachment is familiar from atom egoyan's stronger portraits of loneliness . exotica comes immediately to mind , but the difference between podeswa and egoyan is that the five senses isn't about character or even emotion , but about ideas . that's a mistake when you're crafting a movie about human interaction -- no amount of egghead theory will make you care a fig about whether or not the housecleaner will find true love . mary-louise parker brings a clever sensuality to her role , whether flirting with leonardi or grousing about her lousy lot to macivor . she surpasses the generation-x " am i after love or just sex ? " dialogue by making her character decidedly feral and bitchy . you wouldn't want to date this vixen past a one-night stand , but she makes for a lively character in an otherwise ponderous piece of art house snobbery . 
