Review: Permanent Record

Straight-A student Alan Boyce’s suicide comes totally out of the blue to his friends, family, and even the well-meaning principal (Richard Bradford, playing the authority figure for the umpteenth time), as everyone struggles in their own way in the aftermath. This is especially so of best friend Keanu Reeves, a care-free underachiever who actually was present when Boyce jumped to his death, but too drunk to realise what was going on, and is now tormented. Michelle Meyrink plays Reeves’ girlfriend, Jennifer Rubin plays the leading lady of the school musical Boyce was scoring before his death, and Pamela Gidley plays Boyce’s sometime girlfriend. Barry Corbin and Kathy Baker are Boyce’s despondent parents. Rocker Lou Reed has a pointless cameo as himself.

Teen suicide (and issues of depression and other pressures on youngsters) is a very important subject that hopefully one day will be given the treatment it deserves in cinematic form. Unfortunately, this well-meaning, but dramatically inert 1988 Marisa Silver (“Vital Signs” with Jimmy Smits and Diane Lane) flick only occasionally gets the job done. The very limited Reeves is well-cast (he has one great scene at the climax) and veteran character actor Bradford gives a terrific turn as a compassionate but stern principal, one of his few genuinely meaty parts. Unfortunately the rest of the cast are either underused (Baker and Corbin, arguably the two most talented actors in the film, with zero to do), or ‘After School Special’ bad (the always amateurish Rubin, zonked-out Meyrink, and especially, the borderline ‘special’ Gidley).

In the key role, Boyce is stuck in a role that never quite lets anyone in, perhaps the point, but it doesn’t make for a satisfying experience for the audience, who are as in the dark as Boyce’s family and peers. Perhaps that is why the subject has failed to really convince on-screen. If we can clearly get into the character’s head, then surely the other characters in the film could, and they could prevent this thing from ever happening. And so maybe that wouldn’t work, besides a little mystery is better than a lot of cliché.

So if you took out some of the awful performances, perhaps this is a convincing depiction of teen suicide, just not a very effective film. Anyway, it’s worth a look, if only for Bradford and to ponder just how in the hell Lou Reed got involved here as a cameo player (meanwhile, Joe Strummer composed the unmemorable score).

It’s not bad, and so I’d kinda recommend this on the importance of the subject matter alone. Maybe it’ll help, at the very least, it helps with awareness of the issue itself. The screenplay is by Alice Liddle, Jarre Fees, and Larry Ketron (playwright and screenwriter of “Fresh Horses”, with Andrew McCarthy and Molly Ringwald) is full of clichéd ‘If only I had known!’ dialogue. 

Rating: C+