Jean-Baptiste Grenouille came into the world unwanted, expected to die, yet born with an unnerving sense of smell that created alienation as well as talent. Of all the smells around him, Grenouille is beckoned to the scent of a woman's soul, and spends the rest of his life attempting to smell her essence again by becoming a perfumer, and creating the essence of an innocence lost.

A lady has her prim and proper life turned upside down after discovering her husband's affair.

United States, 1926: Dutch 24-year-old Willy Wolters has immigrated to the American continent with her parents as a child. She dreams of becoming a conductor, but this is an ambition that no one takes seriously. Unbeknownst to her, she'll also become Antonia Brico.