Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The newly released adaptation of Stephen Chbosky’s 1999 cult novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower stars Logan Lerman as Charlie, our perennial wallflower and the film’s occasional voiceover narrator. Emma Watson and Ezra Miller—playing stepsiblings Sam and Patrick—round out the much-loved trio. Perks is the kind of book that tweens loved to quote on their MySpace pages. That’s not necessarily meant as a jibe; Charlie might have had a hard time finding his place among his peers, but Chbosky made us find a little bit of him within ourselves. Chbosky wrote the screenplay and directed it, so the adaptation creates a similar effect.

Perks unfolds against a pleasant Pennsylvanian backdrop of early nineties suburbia, replete with Nina Dobrev in a pink cable knit turtleneck and a floor-length plaid skirt. There are several predictable and cringe worthy lines from Watson to that end (“Everything sounds better on vinyl”), but the film creates a believable pre-Internet, pre-cell phone world. Everyone makes mix tapes for one another, Charlie’s friends write and publish zines, and no one can figure out that the song they like to play while driving through the Fort Pitt tunnel is David Bowie’s “Heroes.” Typing “heroes song” into Google nowadays would tell you as much in 0.17 seconds.

But for all its charming nostalgia, Perks suggests that the problems and pangs typifying modern teenage years weren’t any simpler or less painful a decade ago. Its characters are a tormented bunch, and the film accordingly explores themes that don’t get addressed in run-of-the-mill high school flicks — homophobia, sexual abuse, guilt and depression. Sam, Patrick and co. persist by never failing to bolster up one another and, upon meeting Charlie, quickly usher him onto their “Island of Misfit Toys.”

The best parts of the film were the ones that didn’t rely on dialogue but instead communicated the sheer joy of finding a secure group of friends. The revisionary homecoming dance scene where Lerman, Watson, and Miller rock out to Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come On Eileen” was one such instance (“They’re playing good music!”). The Rocky Horror scenes—cleverly placed so that the sultry content of that movie aligns with Perk’s larger narrative—were another. The novel references many bands, books and cult films, several of which made their way onto the film’s soundtrack and screen. The film’s musical selections are particularly excellent and definitely enhanced several of Chbosky’s shakier sequences.

I can’t resist: seeing Emma Watson sans-wand was really strange, and her American accent was not at all believable. Hearing Sam get slut-shamed instinctively made me bristle and brought to mind Rita Skeeter’s Witch Weekly article about the love triangle between Hermione, Harry and Viktor Krum (“She’s made you out to be some sort of—scarlet woman!”)

The film’s earnestness and honesty can get cloying at times. The phrase “we are infinite” (in the book, a powerful moment of acceptance for Charlie) feels especially cheapened given its use as the promotional tagline for the film. But Chbosky’s themes hold true and emotion resonates, even through the occasional awkwardly framed shots of his debut film. His book and his film possess indelible kernels of truth about growing up and moving on. Hermione said it once before: “There are more important things [Charlie]—friendship and bravery.” It’s really special if you can find some people to drag you off of your proverbial wall.

U.S. release date: Sept. 21, 2012