The Perks of Being a Wallflower
I’m guessing a lot of the teenagers and young adults who have been coming to see Stephen Chbosky’s adaptation of his own novel have either already read the book, because if people think they know what the movie is about based on the trailer, I can’t imagine them coming out anything but disappointed. Of course, I’m one of those people who wanted to see it solely on the trailer, and I loved the film, which immediately shot up to being one of my favorites of 2012.
Chbosky’s story deals with alienation in high school, and how a loner (Charlie, played beautifully by Logan Lerman) finds an inviting circle of friends during his freshman year. That much, we know from the trailer. What I didn’t see coming, however, was the profound sadness of Charlie’s character, the result of past tragedies, and one of the most potent examples of approaching school bullying in the fictional realm I’ve ever seen. This film is so much more than just the sweet, off-kilter coming-of-age story of the trailers; it’s a realistic, emotionally palpable look at personal growth.
The film is framed by letters Charlie writes to an anonymous “friend,” someone we never see, and never really are aware of. This might be Charlie’s way of journaling to himself, or it could be letters to his best friend Michael, who shot himself the year before. In these letters, Charlie reveals more of himself than he is capable of to others, even his family, who is concerned for him; ever since his aunt Helen (Melanie Lynskey) died when he was 7, he’s been having blackouts, and visions in which he sees moments of caring with her. He was the last one to see her alive, and at times, he has blamed himself for her death, since she was going to get his birthday present. Not long after the year starts, however, he finds himself embraced by a group of friends led by step-siblings Patrick (Ezra Miller, in a scene-stealing, emotional performance) and Sam (Emma Watson, maturing wonderfully past her persona in the “Harry Potter” films) who love old music; perform “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”; and have the same, romantic notions of love, life, and friendship we all have at that point in our lives.
We see the cruelty of high schoolers towards outsiders like Charlie throughout the film; after his first day, his only friend is his English teacher (Paul Rudd), who encourages Charlie to open up, and read books that will help him find himself. However, the saddest glimpse of bullying comes from Patrick, a proud, openly gay senior who is confident in who he is, but has had to lock his feelings up when his boyfriend, the closeted captain of the football team, insists that their relationship be made secret. Things come to a head when the boyfriend brushes Patrick off, and things get unexpectedly, and brutally, violent in the lunchroom. Few fictional stories look at the subject of bullying, and the deep psychological pain it causes, with quite this film’s intelligence and emotion; when “Glee” broached the subject in its second season, the results were strong, but not this difficult or powerful.
The more we watch of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” the more we realize that this isn’t a story just about one particular subject or theme, but about the adolescent experience itself. My own times growing up weren’t the same as what Chbosky’s chronicles in this film, but even when I was still working on discovering the “real me” in my late 20s and early 30s, there’s so much in Charlie’s story; in Sam’s story; and in Patrick’s story that continues to resonate powerfully with me, even if the timeline of my own coming-of-age is skewered compared to that which we see in the film. From the note-perfect performances to a soundtrack that makes great use of everything from David Bowie and The Smiths to Sonic Youth, Crowded House, and an evocative score by Michael Brook, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” doesn’t bring anything fresh to the long history of high school movies, but it brings something so many forget– a bracing intelligence, and bruised soulfulness that remembers exactly what life is like at that age.
