Permanent Midnight Review
by "David N. Butterworth" (dnb AT mail DOT med DOT upenn DOT edu)October 2nd, 1998
PERMANENT MIDNIGHT
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1998 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
There's something about Ben Stiller that makes him a popular choice among casting directors these days. Stiller currently has three projects in circulation, and what other actor can lay claim to that? He's in "There's Something About Mary," which I *still* haven't seen. And he's in the acerbic "Your Friends & Neighbors," playing a talkative, sexually-frustrated drama coach called Jerri.
Now there's "Permanent Midnight," in which Stiller plays another Jerry, this one a heroin-addicted television writer, last name Stahl.
There's also something about this industry that pushes bankable stars like Stiller into doing drug-addiction pictures the minute they've proved themselves commercially. Ewan McGregor springs to mind who, after successful turns in "Emma" and "Brassed Off," received greater respect and admiration for his mind-blowing realization as Renton in Danny Boyle's transatlantic junk-fest, "Trainspotting."
The philosophy appears to be a simple one: If you want 'em to be taken seriously, make 'em do drugs.
"Permanent Midnight" is based on the true life experiences of Jerry Stahl, a successful Hollywood writer who, in the mid-eighties, had a $5,000-a-week job churning out plotlines for disposable TV sitcoms and a $6,000-a-week heroin habit. A habit, in Stahl's own words, "the size of Utah."
As Stahl, Stiller contributes a commanding performance.
Unlike "Trainspotting," which was successful in having it both ways by chronicling both the highs and the lows of heroin abuse, "Permanent Midnight" instead focuses on the concept of drug addiction as maintenance. One of the earliest observations in the film is a casual reference to "Naked Lunch" author William S. Burroughs who, when asked why he shoots up first thing in the morning responds, "so I can shave."
Stahl rarely appears to be puncturing veins for the thrill of it all in "Permanent Midnight"; it's so he can talk to his mother on the phone, show up for work on time, even pay his bills.
While the film itself occasionally wobbles around along with Stahl, the writing (adapted from Stahl's autobiography by director David Veloz) is controlled and pointed. "Permanent Midnight" shows how Stahl moved from New York to L.A. to--again in the author's words--"escape the drug scene" (yeah, right); why he entered into a convenient marriage with a British TV exec (Elizabeth Hurley, so impossibly polite you'd swear her single profanity was dubbed); and that he conceived a child in between his random hirings and firings.
Stahl narrates all this in a motel bedroom to a sympathetic lover called Kitty (Norristown's own Maria Bello) with whom he spent some rehab time. Janeane Garofalo is wasted--and miscast--as a heavily-bespectacled Hollywood talent agent who fails to get her hooks into the doped-up wordsmith, and that's Stahl himself playing a jaded clinic counselor.
Stiller, unshaven (Burroughs take note) and with lots of mascara around the eyes, has Stahl stumble through the film looking like a train wreck but, to his credit, never once pushes his pill-popping, needle-jabbing performance over the top.
The ubiquitous Stiller is the reason to see "Permanent Midnight"; a dark, comic, and strangely absorbing study of assisted living.
--
David N. Butterworth
[email protected]
More on 'Permanent Midnight'...
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
