Permanent Midnight (1998)

Permanent Midnight seems at first like another film you will love. It's the story of a drug- addicted real-life semi-celebrity, it's directed with slick style and a fast pace, and it provokes emotion with its increasingly gloomy atmosphere and R-rated subject matter. The "but" or the "however" is hard to place, because there is no real reason why it can't live up to the expectations based on what I just described. The only real way to say why it isn't the contemporary classic or young moviegoer's classic that it should be is to say that it doesn't have as much intensity that one would expect from it. It allows itself to indulge in the formula elements of a movie like this.

There are formula elements to every genre and subgenre, even the fast-paced stylized biopic and the drug film, even though they don't seem like they would. Why would they? They're usually based on true stories and real lives, or they go in directions most other films don't take. Still, a real life and a true story can still either turn out the way so many similar ones do, or their adaptations do. Permanent Midnight is a formula film of its subgenre.

That doesn't stop it from being enjoyable and powerful on a substantial level. It's directed well and Stiller's performance is fantastic. It's loaded with dark humor, Scorsesian music placement and jump cuts disguised as techno music and fade outs, and attention-grabbing supporting players like Owen Wilson and Maria Bello. If only its storytelling took another avenue, or if only it were tighter and more extensive.

Fmovies: I think Ben Stiller is typecast; I've only seen him play quirky Jewish guys in comedies. He's quite good at that (because that's basically what he is), but I was very interested to see him in a serious role, so I rented this film. Unfortunately, the film is unevenly paced and rather humdrum.

The film's pace is really off, because it tries to cram at least a year and a half's worth of events into 80 minutes. The story is told in segments, meaning the film jumps around a lot; Jerry (Stiller) switches dealers and loses friends out of the blue, but more importantly, the entire period between when he is in rehab and when the film begins is alluded to but is noticeably absent (how and why DID he come to that "fateful" fast food job?). The film focuses mainly on the beginning of Jerry's downfall due to addiction, but never tells the whole story (he never seems to hit addiction's true rock bottom). The segway between these sequences - Jerry telling another ex-addict more of his "story", should've been done away with; its totally unnecessary and serves only to lead to an ending that makes little sense, even within the context of the segways.

Besides all the missing sequences leaving gaping and occasionally confusing holes in the story, the story left isn't terribly interesting. The "drugs cause successful man to become a desperate shadow of his former self" plot is second only to the "Hollywood doesn't give a damn about anyone" subplot in its simplicity. It's been done before, and if it hasn't, it sure seems like it has, including the "telling the story to another sympathetic ex-addict" aspect. Perhaps including some of the aforementioned missing segments would have given the story the extra kick it needed.

The story is the only problem with the film, the performances are excellent. Stiller is just as good in a dramatic role (although, somewhat ironically, his character is a quirky Jewish addict), and Elizabeth Hurley gives an excellent supporting performance as Jerry's marriage-of-convenience-wife who actually cares about him, but gets the fall-back from his addiction instead (her response to these incidents is only hinted at, and should have been extended on). Janeane Garofalo is another great supporting character (Jerry's agent) that deserved more screen time. Besides sporting great performances, there are a few inspired scenes, though due to the story's disjointed order, they feel just as "dropped in" as the rest of the story's major developments.

There's nothing outright wrong with the film, it's just missing too much. If the film had run for the length of a regular film it probably would've filled in enough of the holes that it'd work better.

I saw it once before, years ago, and it left an indelible impression on me. I watched it again just ten minutes ago, and I am confirmed in my praise.

The performances are tops, the story dark but very funny - and factual - based on Jerry Stahl's book of the same name. Jerry Stahl is played by Ben Stiller in his most challenging yet most convincing role to date. It's a real privilege to watch such a performance.

Mind you, I'm not exactly Ben Stiller's biggest fan (to be fair, I have enjoyed a few of his films), and Jerry Stahl was the writer of the TV show ALF; while that could have been a turn-off for me, it wasn't. Sure, there have been some moralizing, vanilla critics who couldn't stomach the overabundance of drug abuse depicted, but I really think too many of them found it hard to rate the film objectively due to what they took as an affront to their precious sensitivities. Which is not to say this film didn't get its share of raving reviews. It's a black comedy, an incomprehensibly strange creature for some, but a true friend to others.

If you're smarter than most people, and you can take your entertainment black, see this one.

Permanent Midnight fmovies. Although the movie is uneven in both some performances and situations, it's worth watching Ben Stiller powerful characterization of Jerry Stahl. There are scenes very difficult to watch due to extreme use of drugs. It's not for the average audiences. If you like to see good acting this one is for you to watch

Permanent Midnight is the autobiographical story of the life and times of Jerry Stahl. This was a movie that tested the boundaries of what could be shown on the movie screen. Ben Stiller's performance as Jerry Stahl was dramatic to say the least. Stiller's performance was excellent and really showed me the flipside of what could happen to somebody when they get hooked on drugs. The whole cast from Maria Bello to Elizabeth Hurley were solid support for the main character, Jerry Stahl. The real Jerry Stahl actually had a role, which surprised me, as Dr. Murphy from the drug rehabilitation clinic. Stahl recounts his life from a hotel room while having a sexual encounter he met while he was working at a restaurant drive-thru. The way that the director lays out the film is perfect; it is different than what I have seen before. The way Jerry Stahl recounts his life the way he did pleasantly surprised me. I warn anyone who wants to watch Permanent Midnight to brace themselves for extreme drug use by sticking needles in arms and sensual love scenes. I recommend this film for its stars' performances.

First, let me apologize for the easy joke in the one line summary. It was simply too easy to pass up. And sometimes writers fall back on easy cliches, especially in headlines.

Actually, make that especially in headlines and in movies about substance abuse. Simply put, Permanent Midnight fails. And it doesn't fail because of the direction, or the writing, or the performances (thought there are certainly serious flaws with each), but because it doesn't have anything new to the discussion. Permanent Midnight on one hand is about the depths to which drugs can drive a man, but it's also about the superficiality of Hollywood. The problem is that neither angle has anything remotely original in it and so barring something remarkable in the execution, there's really no point in making the movie. Permanent Midnight, though, features many good things, but nothing remarkable enough to justify the "been there/ done that" feeling that remains when the narrative is finished.

Permanent Midnight features a framing story that feels made up. Since I haven't read Jerry Stahl's book of the same name, I cannot speak to the truth of the framing sequences which feature Maria Bello as an ex-drug addict named Kitty. I can only say how painfully convenient it is for recovering Jerry (Ben Stiller) to have this blond angel more than willing to hear his story of degradation. Not a moment between Jerry and Kitty rings true emotionally, but at least it gives writer/director David Veloz and entre into the story, not that the story actually goes anywhere. You see, when Jerry arrives in LA he's already a junkie, living with his friend Nickie (Owen Wilson), who's also already a junkie. He marries a British TV producer so that she can get her green card and she helps him get a television writing job. As shown in the film, there's nothing about his life that leads the the progression of his drug addiction. He just gets deeper and deeper and befriends shadier and shadier characters.

There's an arbitrary point at which he obviously decided to quit (since he's clean in the frame story), but by the time we get there, it seems so obvious and so unsatisfying as to make the journey feel wasted. No matter how bad things seems to get, the audience knows it could always be worse, because we've seen worse drug addictions in a dozen movies of varying qualities. Throughout the flashback, Jerry makes no real attempts at recovery and yet only falls to a certain level. He never makes it to hell. Nothing in the film has a payoff.

Much of the problem, then, is in Veloz's episodic screenplay. Characters wander in and out and nothing really comes together. Jerry seems strung-out, but he never seems horrible, so we can't really pity the people who trust him and love him because he doesn't really do any serious damage to them. Everything just comes and goes.

The film is filled with tiny "star" cameos which meet with only occasional success. Owen Wilson and Janeane Garofalo are always good to have around, as is the perpetually psychotic Peter Greene. Cheryl Ladd, Fred Willard, Andy Dick, and Connie Nielsen, though, provide uninteresting one shot encounters.

Veloz perhaps wisely avoids drug movie hallucination clichés. Aware that he lacks the visual sensibility to rival Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Trainspotting, he restricts his flourishes to a single drug nightmare and to boring New Wave-y jump cuts and the like. Veloz clearly sets the film up as Ben St