Permanent Midnight

"I get it," a woman exclaims when the man she picked up at a fast food joint reveals he was once a television writer. "You're one of those angsty, arty, Hemingway types who sold out to Hollywood, hit the needle and ended up in rehab." The story is "not that simple," he replies. Ben Stiller, enjoying a career year with the box office phenomenon There's Something About Mary and Your Friends and Neighbors, goes for the jugular with this harrowing film based on Jerry Stahl's 1995 autobiography that chronicled his spiraling descent into addiction. While he was earning $5,000 a week, he was working "on a habit the size of Utah." With its graphic portrayals of the needle and the damage done, this film does not make the mistake of glamorizing substance abuse, though it does feature some potent mordant humor. Stahl shoots heroin and runs five miles. "I was an L. A. junkie," he explains. "I had to look fit." Referring to his green card bride (Elizabeth Hurley), a television executive, he speculates, "I think she saw us as a power Hollywood couple in the making, which is kind of like love." Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)