Permanent Midnight

I've never been a big fan of Ben Stiller's comedy performances. They've always struck me as having a desperate, "Look at me, I'm funny," attitude, especially in films like Zoolander and Tropic Thunder. But as a dramatic actor he shows much better discipline. Though I wasn't crazy about the movie, I thought he was good in Greenberg, and he is very good in the otherwise mediocre Permanent Midnight.

A 1998 film directed by David Veloz, and based on a memoir by Jerry Stahl, Permanent Midnight tells the harrowing story of Stahl's drug addiction while working as a television writer. Stahl wrote for several shows, but here the focus is on a thinly fictionalized version of ALF (the film calls it "Mr. Chompers").

Told in flashback, Stiller is in rehab and working in a fast-food restaurant when a woman (Maria Bello), a fellow addict, drives the wrong way through the drive-thru window looking for matches. They end up in a motel room and Stiller tells her his story. Already having a drug problem when he arrives in L.A., he hooks up with his old drug buddy (Owen Wilson) who introduces him to a television executive (Elizabeth Hurley) who is looking for a partner in a sham marriage to get her a green card. She gets him a job with the puppet-centered sit-com, but he escalates his drug use to shooting up heroin.

Eventually he and Hurley have a baby, and the film climaxes with the evening he takes the infant with him on an odyssey to find a score. Somehow I think this would have been more harrowing in print than it is on screen.

While Stiller is excellent in this role, the film suffers from not being able to give us any insights into the man's drug addiction. There is brief mention of a father's suicide and a mother's mental instability, but we're thrust into the situation in the middle. This is the "Behind the Music" template, without the first half.

There are a few moments of genuine humor, such as when Stiller gets the "Mr. Chompers" gig by telling the producer (Fred Willard) that he sees the puppet as a modern-day Tom Joad, or when he pitches an idea for another show, while completely high, that would break out in Ethel Merman-like musical numbers.

Though Permanent Midnight is not a great film, it made me wish Stiller would do more drama.