Went to the movies yesterday with ThatChick (from That Blog That Chick Wrote) to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I have to admit to having no idea what the movie was about before grabbing my frozen coke and finding our seats. Instead of being Ms Organizer, for a change I was just going along for the ride. I was vaguely expecting another American teen ‘coming of age’ flick, and wasn’t disappointed, but it was also much more.
While most films about teen angst in American high schools tend to fall back on the cliches of typical overly melodramatic teen angst brought on by what appears to be a never ending popularity contest, Perks brings some new depth to some very familiar themes. The film was well cast with Charlie (played by some kid named .. hang on a sec while I look this up… Logan Lerman) and his love interest played by Hermione Granger, err I mean Sam (aka Emma Watson). There was also a fantastic character in the unusually-comfortable-with-my-sexuality token gay guy Patrick (Ezra Miller) who was flamboyant and often dragged the others out of their shell, and along for the ride with his joie de vivre (who reminded me a LOT of Kev, aka Darkman to many of us).
Unlike most teen flicks, nothing is as simple as it seems on the surface and each of our happy trio have their own demons, ranging from a jock in-the-closet boyfriend, bereavement and guilt over loved ones lost to accidents and suicide, as well as the not fully acknowledge but latent theme of child sexual abuse.
As a group of misfits goes though, to me these guys don’t seem as ‘misfitty’ as they should. For one, Sam is far too pretty not to be one of the cool kids (Emma Watson is all grown up so you guys can stop feeling like such dirty perverts now), Charlie is far too smart to be picked on by the other smartypants in his advanced literature class, and Patrick is far too charismatic to be socially ostracized – especially given his anti-authoritarian antics which delight his fellow classmates.
Overall this is not your typical coming of age teen drama and while it has many lighthearted moments it’s not a comedy either. These teens display a level of maturity far and beyond what one is accustomed to expecting from Hollywood’s typical high school kids and the issues they are dealing with are also hopefully not de rigeur for your average teen.
It’s very emotionally engaging, nostalgic and funny, yet contains several scenes of profound sadness which communicated some heavy duty disheartening realisations for the audience… Seeing this film made me want to go and read the book ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower‘ by Stephen Chbosky… which in itself is quite the recommendation (Incidentally the book was banned from a number of high school libraries in the US by groups citing promotion of homosexuality, drug use and sexual behaviour… Sigh. Uptight sepos).
Go see it if you feel like indulging in some nostalgic melancholia for a few hours, I actually really enjoyed the film and I had an inexplicable desire to go and make mix tapes for the people I love which stayed with me for several hours! 🙂
PS: If you want a proper informed opinion of the film go here (link to follow) – she actually knows about cinema and stuff 🙂