Permanent Midnight

Permanent Midnight is as enveloping as it is darkly cautionary, thanks to the effectively varied layers of Mr. Veloz's direction and the bitter intensity Mr. Stiller brings to his central role. Read full review

The movie gets credit for not making the high life seem colorful or funny. It is not. It is boring, because when the drugs are there they simply clear the pain and allow the mind to focus on getting more drugs. Read full review

Despite some small narrative flaws, though, Stiller alone is reason to keep watching. It's a brave, scary and antic tour de force from a performer who, over the past few years, has been slowly banging his head against the glass wall of typecasting. In Permanent Midnight, the clown finally shatters the barrier and comes out the other side an actor. Read full review

The harrowing scenes of Stahl's drug abuse and strung-out aftermaths are dulled by Stiller's quips, while the laughs stick in our throats because of sheer embarrassment for Stahl's character. By trying to have it both ways, Veloz does full service to neither. [09 Oct 1998, p.8]

Permanent Midnight is a slick, entertaining, show-biz saga whose worst fault may be that it has a happy ending. Stahl has not only recovered from debauchery, he's making a ton of cash with his book and the movie. In fact, this may be as quintessential a morality tale for the nineties as the Monica Lewinsky story. [25 Sep 1998, p.D9]

While the tail end of the film does receive cheap laughs, it really does ruin a very emotional end to a rollercoaster ride that is, after all, a man’s tragic life. In fact, if it were not for this tacked on, sleazy wrap-up, the film would have garnered an even higher rating. Do not let this fact dissuade you from seeing this film. It is well written, well acted and extremely engrossing. Just find out exactly when the film ends and leave about five minutes before and you will be very satisfied. Read full review

Permanent Midnight might have been somewhat smoother if it had been framed by the talk-show sequences. The motel scenes with Kitty could have been dropped in favor of scenes that would have offered a deeper sense of Jerry's arrangement with his wife. But the movie touches something real. By the end of Permanent Midnight, you almost feel that you do know someone like Jerry Stahl. [25 Sep 1998, p.23]

Ben Stiller seems the perfect actor to play Hollywood writer- turned-junkie Jerry Stahl in Permanent Midnight. He's got that bitter humor, the intense eyes betraying an inner life of pain. And he comes off as pathetic. The trouble is that it's hard to care -- even though the film is well-acted, artfully shot and at times haunting in its bleakness. Read full review

The movie, lacking snap and sarcasm, fails to convey the book's tone. [16 Sep 1998, p.3D]

The cast is uniformly good. In the end, though, as Stiller's Stahl does the rounds of the talk shows, plugging his book and his newfound sobriety, Permanent Midnight fails to deliver a true story of redemption, of someone who has come through the dark side and conquered his demons. The guy is still feeling sorry for himself, and the residue of narcissism - the lifeblood of the entertainment industry - is caked all over the place. [18 Sep 1998, p.03]

The problem with most movies about junkies is that they're really not about anything but getting high, crashing and screwing up. The problem with most movies about writers is that they can't demonstrate a writer's talent. Put the two together and you've got Permanent Midnight. [18 Sep 1998, p.H6]

The framing device, which has Stiller recounting his tale to a fellow recovering addict (Maria Bello) over the course of a weekend sex session, stops Permanent Midnight dead in its tracks every time it pops up, but Stiller alone is almost enough reason to check out the film. Read full review

Stiller’s attempted image makeover, though admirable, doesn’t make it. His perform-ance is strictly from the clenched-teeth, “Look at me, I’m acting!” school. Read full review

This cautionary tale, complete with the swank cars, cool clothes and depraved babes that inevitably accompany degradation Hollywood style, is based on former sitcom scribe Jerry Stahl's lurid tell-all memoir of his descent into heroin addiction. Under the witty surface, the moral seems to be "The devil made me do it." Even by sitcom standards, that's old. Read full review

Permanent Midnight never shows us who Jerry Stahl was before he began shooting junk, and so we have no real stake in what the drugs did to him. He’s a case study in search of a movie. Read full review

Permanent Midnight's Hollywood segments are clever and amusing, but the more Stahl's life unravels in his demeaning search for drugs, the more the film inevitably goes down along with it. Watching Stahl searching frantically for an unused vein in his neck with a baby fussing next to him (don't ask) may be unnerving, but it is far from irresistible. Read full review

Despite its subject - an addict's dark interior life - Permanent Midnight offers little in the way of character development and no jolting insight. Read full review

Despite its subject matter and some humorous moments, the film lacks any real verve and punch, and brings little new to the table in the already tired new genre of junkie confession. The performances are solid and there are flashes of humor, but on the whole Permanent Midnight is in the dark. Read full review

In short, Permanent Midnight is about what you would expect from a mild-at-heart movie that wants to titillate with a fallen artist story that has a wholesome outcome. [18 Sep 1998, p.D9]

Screenwriter David Veloz makes his debut behind the camera with this stale and stodgily paced depiction of Stahl's highs and lows. The story, which Veloz also wrote, unfolds via a series of momentum-draining flashbacks. [18 Sep 1998, p.C07]

The filmmakers' instincts may be sound, but Permanent Midnight is no killer. Stahl hated most of what he wrote in his TV heyday. So one really wonders why he, and maybe Stiller, didn't write this script. Surely, it's one script Stahl could have delivered. Read full review

Perhaps if Jerry were a three-dimensional character, or the movie had focused on one plot instead of trying to do it all, Permanent Midnight might have been engaging. But in the end, all you see is another rich spoiled brat shoving tar up his arm, and at this point it's just too hard to care. Read full review