Written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, who also wrote the novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower tells the age-old story of the shy kid who gets picked on at school, had a troubled upbringing and spends his spare time writing to an imaginary friend in his diary. Charlie’s (Logan Lerman) life turns around when he meets quirky seniors Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller) who take him under their wing. While it begins on well-tread ground, Perks quickly becomes quite dark and gripping as we’re taken deeper into the lives of Charlie and his new friends.
You’re in for a teenage drama, but it’s a damn good one. Each character is angst-ridden and suffering, but it’s all justified, it’s all real. The struggles of each character are weighty, they have depth and are slowly realised, not simply thrown at you to raise the stakes. The plot twists punch you right in the gut, leaving you breathless as if a real friend had just shared a real secret with you.
The performances are great across the board and Watson gets bonus points simply because my brain wasn’t screaming ‘HERMIONE’ every time she was on screen. The undeniable stand out however was Lerman as the central outcast, Charlie. He’s fantastic here and a joy to watch, bringing a freshness to a cliched character. He captures brilliantly the different facets of teenagery: the timid wallflower at the school dance, the intense romantic, the nervous wreck. Miller is the source of a lot of genuine laughs as the bombastic Patrick, yet he never slips into the ‘comic-relief’ category. His story is just as sad and important as the other’s.
There were one or two lines that failed to be as profound as they were so obviously intended to be. Sam’s “welcome to the island of misfit toys” comes to mind. This could just be something that was lost in translation between novel and film, perhaps if I read rather than heard that line it wouldn’t make me feel violently ill.
For the entire duration of the film I failed to notice that it was set in the early 90’s, despite the many obvious pointers. I’m not sure if this is an indication of the timelessness of the story, or if it’s because so many defining things about the 80’s and 90’s are still being used (ironically or nostalgically) today. I remain confused however, and I acknowledge that this is a petty and inconsequential comment, when it came to the elusiveness of the ‘tunnel song’. How could a bunch of teenagers who grew up in the 80’s not know David Bowie?
Visually the film had what I will call a ‘nostalgia-filter’ effect, a very grainy, not at all crisp overlay that made me think, not of any specific decade or of Instagram: The Movie but instead of a collective recollection of teenage life, locked away deep down in the cellar of our adult brains. Perks deals with the universal. The awkwardness, the excitement, the despair, the heartbreak, all the twists and turns that you never thought would happen to you. Every teenager lives a vastly different life to the next, and Perks is a film that does not wallow in, but rather celebrates these differences and the diversity of young human experience.
4 out of 5
“We accept the love we think we deserve” – Chris.
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