Permanent - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Permanent

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
Permanent originally came across my radar due to the fact that writer/director Colette Burson is the co-creator of the HBO series Hung. A series that is surprisingly entertaining and features Thomas Jame in a role that you’ve never seen before. I’ve enjoyed the series greatly so I was naturally curious about her first feature film. Unfortunately, I have to say that Colette really needs to stick to doing TV shows, or at least get some more work on her craft before moving into the feature film category. Permanent is a cinematic abortion of epic proportion, which confuses bizarre actions with comedy, and stupidity with being witty. The movie has little, to no, redeeming qualities about it besides the solid casting choices, and is probably one of THE biggest chores to sit through.

Permanent deals with the trials and tribulations of the Dickson family after an abrupt move to Virginia. Jim Dickson (Rainn Wilson) leaves the military to start up a career in the medical field, but he is sorely under prepared. His wife Jeanne (Patrica Arquette) leaves her life as a stay at home mom, and goes into waitressing so that her family can eat. This leaves young, per-pubescent, daughter Aurelie (Kira McLean) to deal with the harshness of being a new student in a new town. Trying to fit in with the rest of the class, Aurelie makes the desperate decision to get a perm so that she can stand out, and ends up REALLY standing out when her beauty school hairdo ends up being a travesty.

While Aurelie is battling the terrors of being a teenager in a new town, Jim has to deal with his own demons. Medical school is not exactly easy, and the ex-military warrior has to figure out how to deal with the real world when he doesn’t have the confines and structures of his former life. The job that he’s going for SOMEHOW requires that he swim. Something that Jim can barely do, and puts a dramatic damper on his attempts at going into the medical field. Jeanne is angry and resentful (or so it seems) at being stuck with the position of being the breadwinner (as she shrieks and yells at her husband nearly every time the mention of her job comes up). Each of the two adults are fighting for their sense of self worth and belonging in this world, and the two middle aged people have to come to grips with the fact that their future is just as shaky and tenuous as their daughter’s integration into her new school.

Permanent dabbles in multiple different genres, bouncing around from subject to subject without any control on WHAT it wants to be. The film seems to want to be a traditional coming of age story one moment, then it switches over to a full blown comedy the next (just without any humor), and then it goes into a drama between aging (if not completely dorky) adults having to realize that they can still fly high and live with their own insecurities. Sadly NONE of the mishmashed genres ever really work out. The comedic aspects of the film fall flatter than a pancake, and the ridiculous attempts at drama fall even flatter. Aurelie’s fights with students (as well as misadventured friendship with the only African American girl in the school) comes across as hammy and stupid, while Jim and Jeanne’s marital issues are about as relatable as a ninja in modern times.

I’m not really sure WHO to blame for this fiasco. Rainn Wilson gives it his all, but Patricia Arquette is so painfully characterized that I am sitting here in flabbergasted awe at the level of ineptness displayed on film. McLean does her best as young Aurelie, but I have to say that most of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Colette Burson. The direction is horrifically sloppy, and the writing even wore, giving play to a film that is so chopped up and abysmal that it really shouldn’t even see the light of day. Go back to the drawing board and start over, or at LEAST stick to writing TV episodes, as Permanent is the cinematic equivalent of driving your car off a cliff.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for crude sexual references, language and thematic elements




Video:

Shot in 1.85:1 with digital equipment, Permanent is a demonstration of a good looking digital shoot. Clarity is sharp, and details are fine across the board, with director Colette Burson and cinematographer Paula Huidobro employing a golden hue to the film to portray the 1982 time period (although it feels much more like the 1970s if you were to take away the Perms, the jogging socks and abysmal shorts of the 1980s) that sometimes robs the film of some detail. There’s some mild softness in the approach, but it is a very stable and pleasing looking AVC encode that is technically sound in every way. Blacks are deep and inky, with mild washing out due to the amber/yellow hue to the color grading, and some mild crush in a locker room scene. Overall, I can’t complain about the picture as it is well done, but it does nothing to really stand out as well.






Audio:

Like you would expect, Permanent is a very front heavy mix that features 95% of the movie’s sound in dialog and mild ambient effects in the front of sound stage. Vocals are crisp and clean, with no signs of imbalance or distortion, while surrounds get small doses of ambient sound effects to fill out the back end. LFE has a few bumps and boisterous moments, but once again, this a AVERY dialog heavy film that is weighted in favor of dialog and mild ambient noises in the front of the room.










Extras:

• Deleted Scenes
• Getting Permanent with Rainn Wilson
• Virginia is for Lovers
• Trailers

Final Score: ​

Permanent is placed in 1982 (my birth year to be exact), and seems to have a sort of autobiographical flair to it that would attempt to place some significant personal meaning to the events that unfold. Unfortunately those events are mysteriously ONLY relevant to Colette Burson herself, as the entirety of the film is nothing but a bizarre combination of events that hold no meaning to the viewers. The result is a sloppy mess that meanders around with the grave of a wild buffalo in a china shop, and the entertainment value of watching your grandmother pick her nose hairs. Magnolia Picture’s Blu-ray is solid enough, with good video and audio, but only a smattering of extras on the disc. Personally, I can find almost zero redeeming features of the film, and list this as one of the worst movies I’ve seen in 2018. Just run in terror from this one.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Rainn Wilson, Patricia Arquette, Kira McLean
Directed by: Colette Burson
Written by: Colette Burson
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles:English SDH, Spanish
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 93 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: April 3rd, 2018

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Run in Terror

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Never heard of this so will keep that in mind and skip it.

 

[Todd Anderson]

No wonder you like ET so much... you were both practically born into this world at the same time! ;-)

Thanks for taking another bullet, Mike!