Major drama there you mini movie, a near tearjerker. (or is that just cheese?)

I'll say cheese. There's a bit on the making of the ad here.

aaah, cheers for that. Well, what can I say... ? Karl Lagerfeld is a genius designer. ;) The film? Oooh... very expensive .. cheese...

Nausea and teethgrinding... Man, this is as bad as it can be.

For the cost of Nicole alone, we could have made a few low(er) budget long movies. How much did this commercial cost in total?

This is quite possibly, the worst ad I have ever seen.

From the terrible lines to the pathetic premise, instead of creating a lovely dream world, they've served up a big chunk of cheese, like you've all said. Corn for $60 million! Clichés abound. Worst ad of the year, at least.

humm...ya...this commercial is just plain old awesome. absolute perfection. cuz hey, whenever we get that whuff of a mans cologne or womans perfume..dont we usually think of someone we knew in the past that used to wear it? this commercial is perfect for that. it's like that particular scent "belongs" to them. and no one else could ever wear it.

The idea isn't bad at all, you are right about remembering scents. The way this is done is terrible however, ham fisted acting, stupid lines etc. They could have done much better, they do the idea a disservice.

I saw on the news that it directed by Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) and it was made for $27 million US. Kidman received $11.6 million US for doing it. Anyone know what the director may have gotten?

I wish I knew. In some articles Kidman is paid $5 million, others $12 - and the ad itself ranges from $27 to $60 million - Baz Luhrmans pay is not mentioned anywhere that I can find.

I think the variation in price is due to conversion- some of those numbers are in Aussie money- others in US.
But either way, it was a massive waste of cash.

As tacky as we might think this was, I'm sure it moved millions of bottles of Chanel. Think about it, at the time Nicole Kidman was the Grace Kelly of our era, cold, quiet, stylish and racking up a great amount of good and bad movies. Then the Oscar. Everyone wants a piece of that.

I remember this ad being talked about in the newspapers when it came out, but I never saw the complete version until just now. Saw the short clips many times, but they don't make much sense if you haven't lived through the whole epic feature.

Yes, the thing is fantastically overblown, but aren't most Chanel ads? It's expected of them.

I had no idea that we were supposed to recognise anybody in the ad. That's face-blindness for you. Nicole Kidman, somebody off the street, they're all the same to me.