I feel like there is a good movie in Permission, it just isn’t the one that we see. Permission stars Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens as a long-term couple shaken from their routine by a friend’s casual remark. Because they decide that their relationship is inevitable (is it?) and strong enough to weather any storm (can it?), they decide to try having sex with other people.
I think that Stevens is excruciatingly hot and a solid actor. Hall is a magnificent and underrated actor. They are the only reason that I decided to see Permission so my criticism is of their characters, not their performance, although it does feel like trolling when two hot British actors are playing boring Americans. At least, let them keep their accents. Also it felt like Hall was playing a part made for Julianne Nicholson. After seeing Hall in movies such as Professor Marston and the Wonder Women and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, we are expecting the inevitable from her character.
Why is media so averse and dismissive of open relationships while wanting the benefits and imagined pitfalls of open relationships? I’m a prude, but I’ve heard stories of successful open relationships, which is why I noticed that media depictions seem more instinctually disdainful of it than I am. I’ve noticed this phenomenon from watching iZombie to Permission. In this film, they want the relationship to be exclusive, but the ability to have sex with anyone as long as they openly communicate with their partners. A problem that is depicted, but not explored is leaving the sexual partner in the dark about the true nature of their encounter. What if the new guy wants more? I was a little disturbed that this aspect of the story was not teased out because I thought that Hall’s character was a bit of a jerk for not being honest with him.
From the opening scene, you know how Permission is going to turn out. Perfunctory routine has never convinced anyone that a relationship can handle this experiment. If the movie had spent more time establishing how they are plausible as the perfect couple before embarking on this journey, maybe I would have been more emotionally engaged in the trajectory, but the unexpected doesn’t reside in our main characters. It resides in the supporting characters: their friends, their family and their lovers.
Permission’s subplot about a same sex couple, Hall’s character’s brother and real life husband of the director, David Joseph Craig, and Stevens’ character’s business partner and best friend and real life husband of Hall, Morgan Spector, is the intriguing one because without wimping out and going for the easier story of a stable couple deciding to have sex with other people, it introduces conflict in a subtle way that gradually expands until it becomes the elephant in the room. Also when the other person is willing to give in to his partner’s demands, it was the first time that I understood on a visceral level why it still resulted in that outcome. It was adult instead of prurient, substantive instead of superficial. It shows rather than tells the main thesis of the film: protect what you have and love by never changing versus being willing to not play it safe so you can be happy. It is the difference between holding tightly against change out of fear that something will be taken from you versus being open to change and possibility even failure out of an expectation of abundance. It is fundamentally a difference in approach to life, not the ostensible, precipitating factor that leads to the denouement. You have to choose the best version of yourself.
I knew that the same sex couple’s story was the best part of the movie during a non-cliched, but brief encounter between the couple and a tired dad in the park played by Jason Sudeikis. There are misunderstandings, embarrassment at a knee jerk reaction to a revelation and acknowledgment that the dynamic is more complex and not easily explained, an instinctual flight response countered by a recognition that though slight, a larger responsibility is owed, a reassurance and then a giving way to the most important relationship of the time. Hall and Stevens have moments where they illustrate subtle emotional shifts showing the difference between openness/sharing as a unit versus individual responses such as criticism, jealousy and intrusion, but they are overtly about sex, which can distract from the deeper changes going beneath the surface that point to their individual character, not their situation. Some experiences are personal and private even if they are innocuous whereas others can be shared and experienced by others through communication. In my ideal world, Hall and Stevens’ characters’ would have taken a back seat to Craig and Spector’s characters.
Permission has some witty, self-aware cinematic moments such as having the surrounding environment occasionally reflecting Stevens’ character’s real emotional state to signal that his overt behavior is a lie. The soundtrack starts and stops to highlight a character’s reaction to a note. Unfortunately these clever constructs that underline the reality that we are watching a film, not watching reality, matches the lighter tone of the beginning, but clashes with the sober ending. This film wants to attract viewers interested in a rom com, but it isn’t a rom com and fails to explore this tone throughout the film. In retrospect, it undermines the emotional maturity of the story.
A special shout out is owed to Gina Gershon who does an excellent job simultaneously playing according to type (Showgirls) and doing the unexpected. She keeps us guessing right until her final appearance in the film. Another reviewer said that her character should have had her own movie, and I wholeheartedly agree. Even though I love movies set in NYC, I hate movies set in NYC because the finances don’t make sense. She is a NYU PhD music student, and apparently he is Aiden from Sex and the City. They have a huge apartment, and he has the time to build her a house, an enormous brownstone, while running a furniture shop that almost no one seems to enter. How?!?
There are two black people in Permission, and I loved both of them. There is a black woman with no lines at the club who gives excellent side eye as Hall’s character is dancing with three guys, including Stevens. I don’t know her name, but thank you. Then Michelle Hurst plays Hall’s character’s academic advisor who is fed up with her student wasting her time. “What do you want?” (Side note: Hall has a black parent so undercover sister.)
I probably would not recommend Permission because I kind of checked out after one hour even though the movie was improving at that point. If you are a fan of the actors, then definitely give it a chance, but maybe it would be best if you decide to watch it to fast forward through any scenes when Craig or Spector are not on screen.