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Review

Why is it that so many "light" actors have felt the need to establish their "serious" credentials by portraying drug/alcohol abusers? Sinatra, Michael Keaton and Sharon Stone come immediately to mind, and now Stiller gives it a go in the ineffectual Permanent Midnight, playing real-life novelist/TV writer Jerry Stahl. Based on Stahl's autobiography, Permanent Midnight follows Stahl's rise and fall as a writer for various TV shows (such as "Alf"), his "arranged" marriage to a comely TV exec (Hurley) and his near-total collapse from heroin addiction. Stiller gets to contort his face a lot, and look really crappy, but this just isn't the serious breakthrough role he was probably hoping for; the character is an absolute loser, and rather uninteresting to boot. Perhaps in this age of "heroin chic," we could use a powerful antidote, but Permanent Midnight is just too tedious and facetious to fit the bill.