Every now and then, you come across a film where everything was done just right. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those films. Directed by Stephen Chbosky, who wrote the screenplay as well as the popular young-adult novel of the same name from which it was adapted, The Perks of Being a Wallflower seems to hit every note just right, capturing all of the tumult and the extreme highs and lows of adolescence as experienced by a group of friends in high school in Pittsburgh back in the early 1990's.(*** Note: this review contains what some people feel to be spoilers, so if you're sensitive to such things, please stop reading now and just take my word that this is really well-done, enjoyable film and is well worth going out of your way to find and see. ***)
The film begins with 14-year-old Charlie (Logan Lerman) writing a letter to an anonymous "Dear Friend" about his nervousness about starting his first year in high school. He writes because he doesn't feel he can talk to his parents or his siblings about his anxieties, nor does he seem to have any real friends he can confide in, for reasons that are initially only hinted at in the internal narrative of his letters.
Charlie's anxieties prove to be well-founded as he finds himself isolated in his first few days at school, dodging upperclass jocks looking to harass new freshmen, torn between just wanting to be left alone and yet not wanting to feel alone. The only friend he makes his first day turns out to be his English teacher, Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd), who notices Charlie writing down correct answers to questions he asks of the class but not holding up his hand to be called on. Sensing Charlie's reluctance to be noticed, Anderson reaches out to him, "You know they say if you make one friend on your first day you'll do good." To which Charlie glumly responds "If my English teacher is the only friend I make today, that'll be sorta depressing."
In spite of his tendency to withdraw from everyone, Charlie finds himself unexpectedly drawn into the orbit of an ultra-extroverted and over-the-top flamboyant senior named Patrick (Ezra Miller), who happens to be the only senior in his freshman shop class as well as a major source of annoyance to the shop teacher, Mr. Callahan (Tom Savini yes, for those who recognize the name, it's that Tom Savini). At the school's first football game, Charlie spots Patrick up in the bleachers and ventures up, hoping Patrick will invite him to sit with him, which Patrick cheerfully does. They are soon joined by another senior, a quirky but friendly girl named Sam (Emma Watson), to whom Patrick introduces Charlie and with whom Charlie is immediately encrushed. After the game, Patrick and Sam invite Charlie along to grab something to eat. The two seem so close to each other that Charlie mistakes them for being boyfriend and girlfriend. They laughingly correct him and tell him that they're actually step-siblings who found that they just get along really well-together, always liking the same music and always having each other's backs.
Gradually, Charlie is befriended by Patrick and Sam. At the homecoming dance, to which Charlie goes alone, he ends up dancing with Patrick and Sam, who then drag Charlie along with them to a party where he meets the rest of their circle: Bob (Adam Hagenbuch), an amiable stoner; Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman), who's bossy and opinionated; and Alice (Erin Wilhelmi), a proto-goth who's into film. At the party, Charlie unknowingly has his first hash-brownie, which causes him to loosen up to the point of sharing his observations on what he thinks of high school so far, which both amuses and impresses the others. He also later divulges privately to Sam that he hasn't been close to anyone since his best friend committed suicide the year before. Learning this, Patrick and Sam decide on the spot to bring Charlie into their circle of friends, with Patrick making it official by quipping "Welcome to the island of misfit toys."
As Charlie gets to know Patrick and Sam and their circle, he leans that all of them have their own set of individual issues they have to cope with. Patrick is fairly openly gay, but his boyfriend Brad (Johnny Simmons), one of the school's star football players, is very much in the closet and so they have to pretend to not really know each other in school. Sam, whom Charlie only sees as beautiful, smart and talented, has low self-esteem and always settles for guys, like her current boyfriend Craig (Reese Thompson), who always treat her badly. A problem shared by Charlie's sister, Candace (Nina Dobrev), whom Charlie sees being abused by her boyfriend. At one point, when Sam asks Charlie "Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?" he repeats what his English teacher told him when he asked him the same question: "We accept the love we think we deserve." But when Charlie says it to Sam, he is finally beginning to understand what it means.
Chbosky does a fine job of touching on moments that almost everyone can relate to from their own high school experience. The intensity and fragility of adolescent relationships. The way you can sometimes find yourself in a relationship with someone you don't want to be involved with but don't know how to get out of, even as the person you really want to be with is in a relationship with someone else. And how formative moments can suddenly come in the most unexpected circumstances. Like when Patrick and Sam are driving Charlie home after the party and Sam, hearing a song on the radio that she immediately likes, demands that Patrick take the tunnel, where she cranks up the volume and then stands up in the back of the pickup and sways like she's dancing to the music as the tunnel lights flash by overhead. The image is simple and yet entrancing, and we, with Charlie, find ourselves falling in love with her.
Other moments are also well captured. Like when Charlie unexpectedly gets drafted to be the substitute Rocky in the group's live-cast act at the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and suddenly finds himself nearly naked in gold lame hot pants in a theater full of people, doing the "Toucha-Toucha-Touch Me!" number with Sam's bodiced-and-boaed Janet. Another moment occurs at a party where Charlie his friends are playing truth-or-dare, when Charlie takes a dare and in an unwitting but truly honest moment commits an enormous faux pas, leaving him suddenly shunned by the entire group just as he was beginning to feel like he wasn't alone. And yet another moment reunites Charlie with the group when he comes to Patrick's rescue during a fight in the cafeteria with a ferocity that takes everyone aback a moment that for all its heroic nature also hints at Charlie's deeper problems. Problems that ultimately come to a crisis point when graduation comes and Charlie has to watch as his senior friends leave and he finds himself alone once again. It is to Chbosky's enormous credit that he avoids the usual Hollywood teen-movie approach and treats these situations much as they really are complicated, with no easy answers, and with wisdom often coming painfully and with a cost.
The young cast are all excellent in their roles, with standout performances by Lerman, Miller and Watson. Logan Lerman's Charlie is a complex mix, perceptive and yet naïve, a loner who finds loneliness unbearable, a friend who feels his friends deserve better than they get but cannot bring himself to feel that he does too. He can rise fiercely to the occasion when his friends are threatened but is as fragile as glass when the secrets he carries buried deep inside threaten to overwhelm him. Ezra Miller's Patrick is charmingly rendered, a character who uses his flamboyance to mask his frustrations and sometimes despair at the unfairness of life, only letting a very few, like Sam and eventually Charlie, inside his protective front. And Emma Watson's Sam is a bravura turn as a girl who comes to life among her friends but whose self-esteem withers when it comes to believing she has anything like a future waiting for her or that she can do better in her choices of boyfriends. All three are acting veterans Lerman (Percy Jackson & the Olympians), Miller (We Need to Talk about Kevin), and Watson (the Harry Potter films) but I think The Perks of Being a Wallflower will be a break-out film for all of them. Particularly for Emma Watson, who proves once and for all that she can be a lot more than just Hermione Granger.
But if the actors are extraordinary in their performances, credit must also be given to the heartfelt dialogue Chbosky's novel and screenplay provides them to work with. All are given wonderfully individual voices, but Charlie, as the would-be writer and ever observant `wallflower' among them, is the one ultimately speaks for all of them with an achingly earnest lyrical poetry, as he does at the end when once again he's with Patrick and Sam, driving through the tunnel and listening to the song they'd heard earlier, except that it is now Charlie who is standing in the back and swaying with the lights passing overhead:
"I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We'll all become somebody's mom or dad. But right now these moments are not stories. This is happening, I am here and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you're not a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you're listening to that song and that drive with the people you love most in this world. And in this moment I swear, we are infinite."
Highly, highly recommended.
The story keeps you guessing and is anything but predictable. There are several things hidden from you as the plot unfolds and right away the mind gets busy trying to figure everything out.
You feel very involved when watching Charlie's freshman year in high school progress. You root for him and are riding on his emotions, but you are also trying to understand who exactly he is.
Without spoiling anything, the basis goes like this: Charlie's best friend shot himself the summer before Charlie goes to high school. As a result, he enters high school as a loner and outcast, and has to try to get through the year with as little resistance as he can. Luckily he starts to make friends and you are brought into their lives with Charlie.
Many moral issues surface along the way. Not directly, but they are happening. With so much going on to the different characters, you are bound to be sucked in by this movie. One of the story lines will grab your heart and you will enjoy it. My sister doesn't even like movies, but we forced he to watch this and she loved it. We all did.
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I am 74 years old. The world is different now; there are more risks and more choices than when I was 15, but this movie reminded me of what it felt like to be 15 and 16 in 1954 and 1955. In those days homework was accompanied by radio with Rock and Roll music thanks to Alan Fried, Ranger hockey against Maurice Richard, and Gene Shepard,the best story teller of all time. Most of us had after school jobs which gave us enough spending money to begin making choices independent of our parents, and every day we left home and entered the world alone, with very little confidence but with the hope that everything was going to work out. Watching Charlie going through his day, observing the antics of his friends and trying to make sense of it all, brought tears to my eyes. The beauty of the movie is that it captures the universal experience of adolescence, and fortunately, as difficult as the experience may be, just like Charlie, most of us make it through.Read Best Reviews of The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) Here
I just returned home from watching this film. I thoroughly loved it. If you are a child of the 1980s and enjoyed John Hughes films, you will love this movie. Take the best things about the 80s: making mix tapes for people you like, going to dances, having your first crushes, dealing with insecurities and shyness, knowing deep secrets about the popular people in school, but then combine all of the dramatic scenes with very powerful performances, and you have a film that is just a great watch and will make you experience every emotion. I laughed, teared up, felt sadness, and felt exuberance all in 1 hour and 42 minutes. I will see again, and I am definitely going to add to my video library. I'm also thinking about reading the book. If I were an Academy member, I would vote for this film for Best Picture before I would "Lincoln." I'm dead serious!Want The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) Discount?
"Welcome to the island of misfit toys." Charlie (Lerman) is a very very shy boy just starting his freshman year in high school. From his first day he counts down the days till he graduates. He meets two seniors Sam (Watson) and Patrick who help him adjust. There are few movies that can suck you in in the first minute. This is one of them. This is a movie that has a character that everyone can relate to, which is very rare these days. There are also movies that are so good that words can not express how good they are. This is also one of those. I honestly can not express how great this movie is and can not recommend this highly enough. I was actually fighting back tears almost the entire time (I almost made it) and for me saying that about a non-sports movie that is saying a lot. I really have nothing else to say except this is an absolute must see movie. Overall, WOW...just WOW. I give this an A+.Save 20% Off
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