I saw "Permanent Midnight," a film by
a guy named Valdoz starring Ben Stiller. It's the story of
Hollywood writer & junkie Jerry Stahl, who apparently was a
writer on (of all things) "ALF." That's right. The
"Alien Life Form" puppet.
Stiller is surprising in the lead role. It's an
"acting chops" kind of role, all mannerisms and junkie
twitches, but I thought Stiller did a pretty good job at it.
There are a couple of problems with this film.
First, "ALF" becomes an English-accented Green puppet
named "Mr. Chompers." This is nobody's fault, of
course; I know the ALF people would never allow this kind of film
to use the license of their hot commodity. The fact that a smack
zombie was writing ALF will delay his transition to a big-screen
big-budget movie by at least three or four months. (Look for
"ALF: The Movie" starring Christopher Walken, John
Goodman, Rosie O'Donnel, Elizabeth Shue, the Olsen Twins, and Jim
Carrey as the voice of Alf in May of 2001.)
But let's face it: When you know
(unfortunately) what ALF looks like, a
radioactive/living-dead-corpse green puppet is distracting.
Okay. On to more substantive criticism.
The film is thin. We're promised the rise and
fall of a Hollywood writer. In fact, the film is all fall, with a
little bit of recovery. Jerry Stahl lands a $5000 a week job
writing Mr. Chompers in the first few minutes of the film. We
have scarcely any idea what he was doing beforehand. Was he
struggling? Was he getting the occasional odd job? Was he using?
We don't really know.
Of course, Stahl doesn't land the ALF/Mr.
Chompers gig on the strength of his talent alone. To get the job,
he must marry an beautiful English woman television executive who
needs her green card. And who plays this "beautiful"
woman? Elizabeth Hurley. So Stahl has to marry a rich Elizabeth
Hurley in order to secure a $5K/wk gig. Talk about a deal with
the devil. (Not only that, but the Elizabeth Hurley character is
sweet, supportive, and loyal. Like I said. A deal with the
devil.)
In a lot of ways, all junkie movies are exactly
like every other junkie movie. We have the desperate jonesing.
The embarassing encounters with straights while stoned out of
your head. Stoned job interviews. Methadone. Expressionistic
scenes of stoned debauchery. (Here, Stahl and a crackhead,
zooming on crack, are in an abandoned skyscraper office, running
and jumping and crashing into the windows. The windows don't
break, and they're just knocked back to the floor after each
suicidal leap.)
And, of course, we have the "Worst Thing
I've Ever, Ever Done when Stoned Sequence." This involves a
jonesing Stahl trying desperately to score while he's babysitting
his new infant child. Fortunately for Stahl, but a bit
unfortunately for dramatic effect, this episode doesn't turn out
to be nearly as heartwrenching or disasterous as it might have.
The story is told in flashbacks, told between
bouts of lovemaking to a fellow recovering Junkie who picks Stahl
up at his halfway house job (serving burgers and fishsticks). I'm
biased towards linear narrative. Still, I just don't see how this
manner of telling the story added anything to the dramatic
effect. If anything, it detracts from dramatic impact-- we know
from the beginning, after all, that Stahl makes it through
recovery, is not incarcerated, is not in a madhouse, is not dead.
And we know he'll end up making it with a hot blonde.
Overall, a diverting film, but not a gripping
or memorable one.
