It’s 1982, and the Dicksons (Jim, Jeanne, and Aurelie) move to a southern town where all the girls long for Farrah Fawcett-type curls (to match their back-woods accents/and love to talk hair/and obsess over their hair.)
Pre-teen Aurelie begs her parents for a permanent, (known outside the south as a perm) hoping for life-changing curly waves but when they take her to a Beauty School instead of a salon to save money, disaster ensues. A bored Student-Beautician accidentally sets the timer for too long, and the perm ends up destroying Aurelie’s already low-grade social life as well as her hair follicles.
Aurelie is left as a gawky yet endearing young teenager trying to navigate junior high with what some kids call an afro, then throw things at her, from epithets to dodgeballs.
Oscar winner Patricia Arquette stars in Permanent opposite Rainn Wilson.
