#26: Permanent Record (1988) (dir. Marisa Silver)

I have this poster hanging in my hallway for a reason. It affected me greatly. Most films about mental health, depression and suicide tend to have a profound effect. I consider this to be an important film albeit an imperfect one with the occasional Lifetime-esque treatment of a delicate subject and questionable action choices. Nevertheless, I often equate my own personal emotional response to greatness.

Towards the end of this, the movie has two distinctive moments that could have easily turned pretentious, but it’s the sincere love that Permanent Record shows towards its characters that just makes them honest and heart breaking. Another moment I can’t shake is when Keanu Reeves’ character is stupidly driving drunk, almost hitting a child and then breaks down to his best friend’s father. I’ve heard people call that moment melodramatic and poorly acted but I have the complete opposite experience. I can’t help but cry along with the character on-screen, perhaps because I know what it’s like.

I know what it’s like to lose someone close unexpectedly. Whether it was through cancer, suicide or overdose, nothing compares to the shock of loss that seems to stay with you forever. It rewires a person to an intense degree. Not only does Permanent Record comment on mental health and depression, but it also achingly captures the grief of unexpected death especially among a younger demographic. It’s certainly not as strong as what Allan Moyle achieved on a deeper level with Pump Up The Volume but some of the same questions and issues are raised: how do you help someone when they’re not asking for help nor giving any signs that they are struggling?

David Sinclair (Alan Boyce) is a popular high school student who seems well on his way to a successful and happy life, but then unexpectedly he commits suicide by jumping off a cliff. We know he’s depressed but there’s never a clear answer as to why he did what he did. Now his friends ponder about why they didn’t notice the signs and the news hits his best friend Chris (Keanu Reeves) particularly hard. A lot of what follows are a lot of moments of breaking down, coming to terms and painful remembrance.

The performances of the teenaged characters are spot on, especially by Alan Boyce as David, Keanu Reeves as Chris, Michelle Meyrink (Real Genius) as their friend MG, and Jennifer Rubin as David’s girlfriend Lauren. I feel like these would’ve been the kind of friends I had in high school. And another intriguing character is their school principal, played by Richard Bradford. He shows very little, but we somehow know he is a good man who is unlike the mean-spirited high school principals in other movies. Also, the parents are given something in particular to do. They are not entirely absent here. They show up when the time is right.

Permanent Record features the kind of realism and emotion expressed by realistic teenagers over a friend’s death that I looked for and missed in the ‘80s after-school special A Desperate Exit which featured Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Rob Stone. The way these teenagers express their emotions feels authentic and real. Credit director Marisa Silver (daughter of Joan Micklin Silver) and her writers Jarre Fees, Alice Liddle and Larry Ketron for creating a story with such subtle, true-to-life realism.

Most people that know me are aware of the fact that I have attempted suicide when I was 12 years old. It wasn’t planned, it more or less was a spur-of-the-moment choice I made one day that I never told anyone about for several years later. Mental illness runs in the family to where even an uncle of mine hung himself. Most family members don’t want to talk about anything dark or dramatic, especially from the past. But I studied psychology for a reason, I wanted to understand myself, the world around me in addition to hopefully helping others. There is a secret torment that some refuse to believe is actually manifesting in unhealthy ways. Even to this day, I struggle with maintaining emotional stability to where it affects my ability to function with ease.

Permanent Record is a film that reflects this internal struggle of being “in the world” and living with severe depression. You feel like an outsider, an alien, a ghost all at the same time, sometimes even while alone lying in bed. One minute, you could be smiling and carefree, the next, all you want to do is sleep until the day goes away. Suicide often makes the most sense as Hard Harry would attest to, but is it the answer? We honestly don’t know since we have no clear concept of what happens after death. But it does often seem like closure, an ending of the current feeling which leaves us uncomfortable in our own skin. David may not have planned to jump, but something inside told him that was the answer at that very moment. If his friend Chris would’ve been there just minutes sooner, could he have even stopped him? How would he have even known that his best friend was about to take his own life? Nobody including my parents, would’ve known that I did as well. I was lucky to survive.

The balance of the movie focuses on David’s friends as each of them goes through the several stages of grief: their sorrow, their denial, their guilt, and their anger for the emptiness he has left in their lives. They then start to rebuild their lives in various ways. It culminates in something that shouldn’t work but somehow, through Silver’s compassion for all involved, it does. The ending of this film is truly special as there is a sense of hope though everyone is certainly changed and reckoning with tragedy. I try to hold on that feeling of hope every day, but it comes and goes. Films like these are a great help in hopes of understanding depression on a significant scale to where it becomes life-threatening. Yet, it’s also about how the signs aren’t always apparent.

Recently both depression and anxiety hit me at full force and this film came up for me to watch. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel but certainly I had trouble sleeping after. Of course, it’s triggering and difficult to sit through, but reliably cathartic. While Permanent Record is not a genius cinematic masterpiece to be forever ingrained in my memory, it’s still a movie that manages to stir a lot of emotion and leave a lingering impression especially for those who know someone dealing with mental illness. These days, who doesn’t? Much like Pump, Gen-Xers who caught it back in ’88 probably have a soft spot for it the way I do. Music buff alert: Joe Strummer did the incidental score, and Lou Reed has a cameo near the beginning.

I wish I could communicate what’s going on in my mind sometimes. Even with support, one could still feel alone because they have to live with internal thoughts. A lot of mine aren’t positive as a result of depression and anxiety. Facing the reality of that is a challenge to where I often can’t deal with other human beings. There are times when I even think inpatient treatment is an inevitable path to cope with personal demons and past mistakes. More often than not, I look to art that can reflect my own experiences and challenges. This is an example of that, although there’s no denying it’s dated and often, much like in River’s Edge, Keanu is sometimes playing a variation on Ted from the Bill & Ted franchise. But I look past all that due to what this film makes me feel.

Again, feelings aren’t easy to convey and even writing a review feels like an exercise in therapy more than objective criticism. But I feel as if movies, music and podcasts help me get through this difficult, troubled mind. It’s been so difficult that I did want to end it all at an incredibly young age when my body was changing in unpleasant ways. I still carry the trauma of near-death around and often experience disassociation or a feeling like I’m not really here anymore. Permanent Record is an interesting title for a film about how life and friendship is impermanent, random and often cut very short for some who can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. As I write this, it does feel darker than usual, but I can’t do what David does in this film knowing the impact it would have on those I leave behind. Grateful that I’m still alive and with continued help, therapy and medication, my life won’t be cut short the way I once wanted it to. I wish that people like David could’ve found the same sense of hope and stability that I try to maintain on a daily basis.