Permission 2017

Permission

Permission

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About the Permission 💬

A woman on the brink of a marriage proposal is told by a friend that she should date other men before spending the rest of her life with her boyfriend.

PERMISSION is a subversive, feminist, romantic comedy that tells the story of a couple who take a big risk - to trust each other.

Anna (Rebecca Hall) and Will (Dan Stevens) were each other's first every-things: first kiss, first love, first and only relationship. Now, 10 years later, at Anna's 30th birthday party as Will is about to propose, the couple's best friend makes a drunken toast, suggesting that as their relationship is so stable and boring, they should sleep around before their inevitable marriage. The joke lands like a lead balloon. But the thought lingers until Anna proposes that they try opening their relationship - as a sexual experiment. Together, they venture out of the purely monogamous boundaries of their relationship and evolve.

• DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

PERMISSION began for me as an ambush. That is to say - all at the same time I was besieged - every friend I spoke to had been hit by the same viral fear, by the same question... We were all about 30, godless, educated, city people, born of the generation of parents who popularized divorce, raised with no example of successful relationships to model; self-actualized, therapized and a generally introspective sort. Yet here we were, all in relationships with people we loved and hoped to grow old with, despite being totally aware that that was a statistical improbability - an old-school fantasy. Blithely, we aspired to someone else's idea of a perfect relationship - i.e. monogamous, steady, a Hallmark card, a Sade song - complete with predictable milestones, growth, rigorous sexual fidelity and joint Instagram accounts for our pets. What in the actual fuck?

Drama has been a cultural necessity and a growth business for the last five thousand years because no one has figured out how to be in a relationship. It's an art, not a science. And it's hard, even when you love someone.

This, a difficulty despite love, was the way into the story for me. As while there have certainly been other films on this subject - I couldn't remember any that had not cast either party, in an opening relationship, as the villain. As if there is such a thing.

So, I knew I wanted to make a film without a villain. And I knew I wanted to make a film in which female characters could have sexual agency without being portrayed as loose or pathological.

I started writing and within the first 10 pages, a perfectly happy, stable, monogamous relationship is questioned (crucially by a female character) with the line, ''I think you should sleep with other women.'' Feeling great about the scene, I gave the pages to my then-boyfriend to read. He read them, looked at me strangely and said ''Is this code? Do we need to have a serious talk?'' And I knew I was on to something. I also realized that dating a writer must be a uniquely unpleasant experience. So, pity him, as spoiler alert - we're now married.

Jump from script stage to film and its execution...

This film's success hinges entirely on its performances. It was clear on the page. The characters articulate behavior designed to force viewers to examine parts of their emotional lives in deeply personal ways. In order for these proxy actions to stick to the ribs, the performances had to be compelling and relatable. So, building a fantastic cast was paramount (and such a pleasure), as was giving them room to operate. So, form following function, the film was devised as a series of long takes, so the actors would have room to maneuver, test each other, poke and prod. Equally, we didn't trap them in constant close-ups. To that end, D.P. Adam Bricker and I came up with a list of rules of execution, chief among them, ''as wide as we can, as deep as we can.'' We wanted to provide the actors, from whom we were asking such emotional intimacy, as much environmental freedom as possible. The framing of the film is formal, the camera movement minimal - creating beautiful frames but focusing all attention on the performances.

In editorial, the mantra was the same. What can we do to heighten the experience for the viewer? Where can we set a trap? How can we play with their discomfort? We found tools as simple as flipping a frame upside down changed the temperature of an audience. In doing so, editorial became a delightful lab experiment. How can we use the beautiful performances provided by Rebecca, Dan, David, Morgan, Gina, Francois and Jason to their maximal effect? Editorial is a joy when you're working with raw footage of performances that are as densely layered and intricately executed.

PERMISSION has been a wonderful thought experiment and growth experience for me, professionally and personally. The challenges of making an independent film are not too dissimilar to that of building a successful relationship. You have to communicate clearly, you have to be available, you have to give, you have to admit when you are wrong and you have to risk. Most of all, there must be a primacy to the venture, a fundamental belief in it, even when you don't know where it is going to lead.

Permission Movie Details 🎥

Directed by

Brian Crano

Writing Credits

Brian Crano

Starring

Rebecca Hall

Dan Stevens

Gina Gershon

François Arnaud

Morgan Spector

David Joseph Craig

Jason Sudeikis

Raúl Castillo

Music by

Joan Wasser

Thomas Bartlett

Cinematography by

Adam Bricker

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Countries: United States, Canada

Permission Official Trailer

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