| Artisan Entertainment | Release Date: September 16, 1998 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
11
Mixed:
11
Negative:
0
|
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Critic Reviews
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.
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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.
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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.
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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]
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.
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