The Perks of being a Wallflower (2012)

The Perks of being a Wallflower, directed by Stephen Chbosky was released in 2012. Adapted from Stephen Chbosky’s novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the film takes place in the late 90‘s revolving around the teenage impulse to be pretentious and the central theme of the struggle to understand the terrible things that inevitably happen to those who we love.

A world where teens can say “We are infinite” is unfolded by the narrative of a series of letters written by Charlie (Logan Lerman), addressed to you; the reader, they detail his alternatively painful and joyous highschool freshman year,  with hopes that you will understand him because he’s heard good things about you.  Socially awkward teen Charlie (Logan Lerman) is a wallflower, always watching life from the sidelines, until two charismatic students become his mentors. Free-spirited Sam (Emma Watson) and her stepbrother Patrick (Ezra Miller) help Charlie discover the joys of friendship, first love, music and more, while a teacher sparks Charlie's dreams of becoming a writer. However, as his new friends prepare to leave for college, Charlie's inner sadness threatens to shatter his newfound confidence. The film recounts abundant trauma – including suicide, child sexual abuse, psychotic blackouts and a gay boy who’s bashed by his own father. Directed by the author of the novel himself; Stephen Chbosky tries to emphasize the pleasures of friendship and the wisdom gained from adolescent misery.

Charlie enters highschool tremulously and with lacking confidence, in his enigmatic, handsome loner profile, Charlie is confronted by the universal freshman challenges of a stereotypical highschool; which table in the cafeteria should he sit in and whom he should form a friendship with, since highschool seems like a whole different level of a battlefield than middle school, since a majority of his former middle school mates have changed completely and ignore him.

With a series of happenings, Charlie is taken under the wing of a flamboyantly gay senior, Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his genetically unrelated wild child stepsister, Sam (Emma Watson). Charlie gradually gets a gentle schooling in love, drugs and heartache from Sam, while Patrick screeches around the screen like a boy crazy banshee. “Why can’t you save anybody?” Patrick inflicts that Charlie may see people he loves make decisions that are bound to hurt them, yet sometimes we are unable to talk them out of it or help them otherwise. Adopted by the older kids, he assists them with their problems: SATs, college applications and difficult romances, notably Patrick's with a closeted football player.  Hence Charlie is gradually being nurtured by his two senior mates from the wisdom gained from juvenile misery.

“You see things and you understand. You’re a wallflower” Patrick gives Charlie a new potential to see within himself, to see as strength to grow on, where he feels unknown. He gives comfort all those around him, and struggles within his own traumatic experiences. Chbosky makes it impossible to not get sentimental as Charlie’s experiences are exposed; one of the key players in his life is his dead aunt, who he often has imaginary meetings with. Charlie discovers the pleasures of friendship; as they encourage him to find fortes within himself, and living in the present rather than his tragic past.

In turn of helping Patrick and Sam with their own glitches, the seniors introduce their new protégé to drugs, hip hop music and role-playing at the weekly screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In between the endeavors outside, Charlie is at his own combat of fighting off from being ‘bad’ again. What exactly happens when he gets bad is teased out until well into the second act, when Patrick takes a beating from his homophobic classmates. The camera spins into black. We wake up with the bullies on the floor and Charlie with bruised fists. Thus when he finds out his so called “bad” doing has done right; he’s taken up new reputation, more positive one in that case amongst his friends.

Charlie doesn't understand why his sister sticks with an abusive boyfriend and why Sam is dated a guy who cheated on her, when Charlie loved her more and he wouldn’t ever have cheated on her; so he approaches Mr. Anderson asking him, "Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date?" Mr. Anderson, (Paul Rudd) Charlie's English teacher and mentor delivers one of the most poignant lines of the film; “we accept the love we think we deserve."  In my opinion, Charlie is inexperienced of love relationships of the people around him going downhill and him being more concerned about them and being unable to do anything but to watch from the sidelines as the people he loves get hurt.

“You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s life ahead of yours and think that counts as love”, Sam tries to make Charlie understand he should be the protagonist of his own life and not let himself be submissive and stepped over just because he loves them more than himself; she wants him to give himself more value in the world. Love is different for everyone; whilst Sam thought is should be something expressed openly; Charlie had the idea that it mean putting everyone’s needs ahead of his own.  Thus Charlie is provoked by a new approach of defining love than the submissive way he expressed his love to his loved ones.

"We can't choose where we come from but we can choose where we go from there." This quote is part of a bigger monologue wherein Charlie talks about what his doctor told him. Charlie leaves the hospital after he gets better and his doctor reminds him that while events of his past were not in his control, and just happened to him, he doesn't have to let it define the rest of his life. It’s a difficult thing to do when there are so many hurtful things in the past, but his doctor tells him that he must make sure that he knows that he has power over his future. Realizations strike into Charlie with the coming of age and his previous life experiences.

Patrick, Sam and Charlie are urbane enough to seem desirable, innocent enough to spark recognition. Adults will find themselves shredding the seat rests through the earnest discussions about first kisses, the passionate soliloquy on the merits of vinyl, but it's not for them, it's for early teens, "And there are people who forget what it are like to be 16 when they turn” 17." Charlie expresses the ability to succinctly express the immense feelings of being 16 and being a teenager. It asks for everyone to pause for a second and to try and recollect how they felt like when they were young as well. In the finale Charlie ends his freshman year in a most unexpected way than he did than at the first day of highschool.

In an epilogue, Charlie writes a final letter to his “friend,” dated two months later, saying that his parents had found him naked in a catatonic state on the couch. They took him to a mental hospital, where Charlie eventually realizes that Aunt Helen had sexually abused him, but that he had repressed these memories. In my perspective, Charlie’s whole journey of freshman year with certain flashbacks; love confrontations, new friendships and a stronger mentality acquired through his achievements of moving on from the past and building himself.

One scene that shows the overall excellence of film techniques used in The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the final scene, where the three friends drive through a tunnel. Together, the narration, music, cinematography and many other factors create a scene that sends chills across your skin in how beautiful and simple it is. The tunnel scene effectively uses film techniques to appeal to the audience’s emotions and encourage them to feel as if they are involved in the film and personally connected with the characters and their experiences.

In conclusion, The Perks of Being a Wallflower talks about a genuine story that occurs in any teenager’s ’life. To be more accurate, the movie has two essential parts, which are the love and friendship; we can observe the love between not only Sam, and Charlie, but also Charlie’s family, his siblings and friend group; implying the fundamentals of love; trust, honest, loyalty and such intertwined in the movie. It exalts to me, that the main part of the movie is talking about how the friends can change our life. Hence the 2012 coming-of-age film written and directed by Stephen Chbosky has achieved a sort of cult classic status. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those movies that feature on many of the best coming-of-age movies lists. Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller, and Emma Watson star in this beautifully warm film. The movie was a critical and commercial success and continues to live on in the collective memories of the teenagers. Hence in my aspects, Charlie has come of age with the procession of the film to its finale, he is no more the silent wallflower who just watches life from the sidelines, he has learnt to engage and be a part of his own life, to the protagonist of it. Hence Stephen Chbosky is in succession of his attempts to emphasize the pleasures of friendship and the wisdom gained from adolescent misery.

The Perks of being a Wallflower

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