Permanent
It's 1982, and the Dicksons (Jim, Jeanne, and Aurelie) move (are the new-comers) to a southern town where all the girls long for Farrah Fawcett-type curls (to match their back-woods accents/ and love to talk hair./ and obsess over their hair.) Pre-teen AURELIE begs her parents for a permanent, (known outside the south as a perm) hoping for life-changing curly waves but when they take her to a Beauty School instead of a salon to save money, disaster ensues. A bored Student-Beautician accidentally sets the timer for too long, and the perm ends up destroying Aurelie's already low-grade social life as well as her hair follicles. Aurelie is left as a gawky yet endearing young teenager trying to navigate junior high with what some kids call an afro, then throw things at her, from epithets to dodgeballs.
28 August 1981, Richmond, Virginia, USA
20 January 1966, Seattle, Washington, USA
1967, Hickory, North Carolina, USA
23 April 2003, Chesterfield, Virginia, USA
8 April 1968, Chicago, Illinois, USA
December 17, 2017
As Auralie, Ms. McLean is appealing and fresh-faced and could do well in a better coming-of-age movie in a few years.
November 18, 2017
Uneven but quirky and often spot-on spoof of the hell of having bad hair in high school
December 18, 2017
Arquette is charmingly endearing as the frustrated Jeanne, Wilson movingly conveys his character's vulnerability as well as his bluster and McLean is terrific as the beleaguered young girl desperate to have a mane like Farrah Fawcett's.
December 17, 2017
It's not without its charms; they just tend to be suffocated by bad wig jokes, distracting wardrobe choices and Craig Wedren's invasively cutesy score.
December 15, 2017
Mild language, absurd violence in coming-of-age comedy.
December 15, 2017
Permanent feels like a short film stretched to feature length. It never quite rises above the level of its premise.
