Permission (2017)

Permission asks difficult questions and doesn't offer easy answers. But while it deals with heavy relationship issues including the validity of monogamy, it manages an easy, seemingly effortless humor that seduces the audience while simultaneously breaking filmgoers' hearts.

Despite a slightly silly premise and a script that plays it fast and loose with increasingly ridiculous scenarios, director Brian Crano‘s sincere and funny Permission manages to charm and impress thanks to the largely committed and above-average cast of Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens.

Almost everything about Permission feels flighty and parochial when laid beside the fateful mire of “Loveless,” yet Hall, in particular, lends a sober grace to the erotic roundelay.

If unwise remarks at a dinner can cast a pall over a longstanding relationship, then a great ending can redeem and even force reconsideration of an otherwise middling film.

Every now and then you run across a film in which a really talented cast takes a crack at a well-worn genre entry. For the most part, that’s what Permission is, though writer and director Brian Crano tosses in a couple of wrinkles.