By George & Josh Bate
A powerful emotional throughline, quirky side characters, and a poignant message about the housing crisis make Seth A. Smith’s new film Permanent Damage, one of the highlights of Fantasia 2026.
Permanent Damage follows Tommy (Calem MacDonald), an escaped convict who finds refuge in the home of Mrs. Whynot (Clare Coulter), a grieving elderly woman with cognitive impairment. Mrs. Whynot lives in a crumbling home owned by a vicious landlord LL (Stephen Dorff), who cuts corners and forces Tommy to work for him on a new construction project. As Tommy witnesses LL’s cruelty first-hand, he falls for LL’s niece Joe (Olivia Scriven) and together they devise a plan to steal LL’s “golden goose” in a desperate attempt to escape poverty once and for all.
Smith has crafted a reputation in recent years for tackling difficult subject matter with delicacy and offbeat humor. After helming Lowlife, which Vice described as the “feel bad hit of 2012,” Smith went on to dabble in the horror genre with the films The Crescent and Tin Can, which collectively commented on substance use, the COVID-19 pandemic, and struggles of parenthood.
Smith takes a genre pivot with Permanent Damage, while still retaining his penchant for insightful messaging. His latest film begins with a convict escaping from a garbage bag in a junk yard and only gets more surreal as the runtime progresses. The shaggily dressed and unkempt Tommy manages to find his way out of the garbage bag and into a dollar store, where he is saved by an elderly lady named Mrs. Whynot who mistakes him for her deceased son Donnie.
Tommy initially plans to take what he can from the cognitively impaired lady but quickly finds that he cares for her. Between sleeping on a dingy couch in her dilapidated home, Mrs. Whynot spends her time watching old home movies of her son Donnie, who passed away in an accident. Tommy doesn’t need to tell the audience, nor Mrs. Whynot, that he has a tender underbelly. Instead, MacDonald exudes this with a warm, gentle performance that makes Tommy an endlessly likable protagonist to unwaveringly root for.
Quickly, Tommy’s investment in Mrs. Whynot entails that he collide with her detestable landlord LL. Stephen Dorff plays LL as such an irredeemable, morally bankrupt, unhinged monster that it is difficult to stop your blood from boiling every time he graces the screen. He’s a formidable antagonist, with little in the way of subtlety, and the perfect mark for Tommy and his new beau Joe to target.
In targeting LL, Tommy and Joe rebel against a man who represents everything wrong with humanity. He is vicious, unfeeling, and lacking in empathy, a stark contrast to the quirky collective of companions that Tommy and Joe are accompanied by. Mrs. Whynot is far from the only person subject to LL’s demanding nature, with a silver-painted bodybuilder (Jonni Shreve) and a bearded man (Chik White) fixed to a chair who speaks unintelligibly among those who Tommy finds unlikely kinship with.
Coupled with Tommy’s endearing connection to Mrs. Whynot, the charm and innocence of the other members of the neighborhood give Permanent Damage both humor and heart. Even as the story becomes a bit wayward in its second and perhaps a tad too surreal for its own good, the characters prove so likable and their relationship so heartwarming that investment in their journeys hardly wanes.
VERDICT: 7.5/10
Making its world premiere at Fantasia 2026, Permanent Damage finds filmmaker Seth A. Smith pivot away from horror but retain his penchant for commentary on some of society’s more challenging and relevant topics. This time around, Smith targets the housing crisis in a film centered around a lovable escaped convict, who teams up with a band of quirky neighbors to rebel against a vicious landlord. Calem MacDonald brings understated heart to the film as a warm, gentle, and misunderstood character, while Stephen Dorff is the antithesis – an irredeemable monster of a man who will make your blood boil every time he graces the screen. Through MacDonald’s character’s relationships with the neighbors and, in particular, the cognitively impaired elderly woman Mrs. Whynot, the film strikes a strong emotional chord and champions the power of found family. While becoming a bit wayward and too surreal in its second half, the strength of the emotional bonds forged between the characters ensures investment in their journeys hardly wanes and renders Smith’s film one of the highlights of Fantasia 2026.