Perks of Being a Wallflower

So, yes I had been uber excited to see this movie for what felt like ages and had legitimate pangs of sadness when I learned that Austin was not included on the initial limited release and I would have to wait another few weeks! I was excited mostly because Emma Watson is so awesome, but also because the movie looked fun/cute/unique. It's made about $7 million already after making it's wide release only last week.

The movie was written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, who also just happened to pen the source novel. It centers around Charlie, a shy and introverted high school freshman played by Logan Lerman, who is quickly taken under the wings of two upperclassmen, played by Ezra Miller and Emma Watson. It spans the ups and downs of his first year of high school and his new friends' last year.

This movie can loosely be defined as a 'coming-of-age' high school story. It is somewhat unique in that the main character is in his freshman year while the others are in their last year. The dramatization of the typical teenage life are a little more subdued than in say, Can't Hardly Wait. This felt a little more grounded in reality. The characters, while flawed, were incredibly likable and you became easily invested in them. Even the antagonists were ultimately likable. The familiar teenage stereotypes were mostly abandoned for something that felt more real in this story. It was also set in the early 90's which just adds to coolness. The ending did feel a little too 'wrapped up' for my taste, but hey it is a movie after all. I will be reading the source novel as soon as Barnes and Noble ships it to my local store, (I'm one of the few that prefers to read the books after viewing the movie). I did read that the ending was changed for the movie, so I'm interested to see how the original ending is.

Obviously the soundtrack was ultra cool, which is a requirement nowadays for any decent indie movie. I've had Come On Eileen stuck in my head for about three weeks now and have been listening to the entire soundtrack on Spotify. The editing was super smooth and the storyline was incredibly easy to follow, even with the instances of non-linear plot. There was enough time given to character development instead of just following plot advancement. The 'drug scene' was edited so well that it really helped the audience to feel what the character was feeling instead of just giving the audience slow motion double vision.


I honestly don't know how you can not like Emma Watson. I think one of the main reasons I was looking forward to this movie was to see her in pretty much her first post-Hermoine main role. She can carry a movie. She did fantastic in this role and you really felt she was your friend at the end of the movie because you knew her character so well. In a side note, she did a pretty stellar job with the American accent. Logan Lerman had just the right balance of naivety and maturity to make his character come off without being annoyingly innocent. It was as if his character was much more mature than his peers in some aspects of his life but then much more naive in the more obvious ways. I'm not sure if anyone else could have pulled it off without becoming annoying or unbelievable by the end of the movie. The only thing I didn't like was it seemed they had too much makeup on him throughout the movie, but that could've just been my poor eyesight. Ezra Miller had the task of keeping up most of the comic relief in the film and did a rather nice job. Out of the characters, he was unfortunately the most stereotypical however he was given some complexity. I thought it was rather awesome that Johnny Simmons and Mae Whitman were both in this movie (and both did stand-ups jobs with their smaller roles), because as I'm sure everyone already caught, they were both in Scott Pilgrim! Score on the movie connection.

Anyway, I ended up tremendously enjoying this film but I am the demographic audience (a young female). While I would not come close to defining this movie as a chick flick, it was set in high-school which almost always narrows it's audience greatly. While the characters were dealing with events and situations in a high-school setting, it was not about those events but instead about the characters and how they related to each other. With it being set in the past, I think it can appeal to a slightly larger audience who lived through that time. It really was a fun movie and you will really cherish your own friends by the end of the movie. Oh, and did I mention there is a Rocky Horror Picture Show reenactment? "We accept the love we think we deserve".