Permanent Record movie review (1988)

And then . . . but here I want to suggest that if you plan to see the film, you should read no further and permit yourself its surprises. I walked into this film knowing absolutely nothing about it, and this is the kind of film where that is an advantage. Let the movie unfold like life. Save the review until later.

I found myself impressed, most of all, by the subtlety with which Silver and her writers (Jarre Fees, Alice Liddle and Larry Ketron) develop David’s worsening crisis. This is not a young man made unhappy by the usual problems of TV docudramas. He doesn’t use drugs, his girlfriend isn’t pregnant, he isn’t flunking out of school and he doesn’t have an unhappy homelife. But it becomes clear, especially in retrospect, that there is no joy in his life, and we see that most clearly in the understated scene in the bedroom of the girl he sometimes sleeps with. Any other couple who do what they do together, she suggests, would be said to be going together. He nods.

There is something missing here. Some kind of connection with other people. Some exultation in his own gifts and talents. Giving guitar lessons to his friend Chris (Keanu Reeves), he is a little impatient; Chris does not strive hard enough for excellence. David, who is admired by everyone in his school, who is the one singled out by his friends for great success, has a deep sadness inside himself because he is not good enough. And that leads to the scene in which one moment he is on the side of that high bluff, and the next moment he is not.

The rest of the movie is about his friends - about the gulf he has left behind, and about their sorrow, and their rage at him. Again and again, Silver and her writers find authentic ways to portray emotions. We never feel manipulated, because the movie works too close to the heart. Perhaps the best scene in the whole film is the one where Chris, drunk, drives his car into David’s yard and almost hits David’s younger brother, and then, when David’s father comes out on the lawn to shout angrily at him, Chris falls into his arms, weeping and shouting, “I should have stopped him.” And the father holds him.

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