Permanent Record (1988)

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Siskoid
Permanent Record is one of those "social awareness" movies, as it addresses teen suicide, but it escapes the After-School Special clichés by being pretty true to life. As the first movie to showcase Keanu Reeves playing the electric guitar, I thought it might be a cinematic oddity, but it's actually Keanu's best career performance to date. Coming off the heals of some pretty simple characterizations, it's almost a revelation. We get to know the overwhelmed youth who commits suicide before it happens, which is important, but then follow his grieving friends, family and classmates as they deal with his death. He was a gifted musician, so they try to pay him tribute through music, but then the politics of it - seeming to glorify suicide - come into play, as they would in the real world. I'm sad to say this happened last year in my own outer circle, and was on the "principal's" end of the event, struggling with optics even as I, like everyone else, wanted to highlight a young person's life and achievements. Permanent Record isn't arch or melodramatic or treating things in a formulaic way. It is, instead, sadly relatable. 4 years 9 months ago