The Perks Of Being A Wallflower - why it's so different to me
Last weekend I was kind of in the mood for some little Indie pearl to get my emotions to work for a bit. As I had watched the first Harry Potter movie on a whim some time before and noticed how expressive the young actor's play already was at such a young time, I remembered seeing The perks of being a wallflower some years ago, the first role Emma Watson had after the HP series. So I picked that movie as the fodder for my emotionally craving brain. And what can I say, once again it fully served its purpose.
The perks of being a wallflower is a 2012 coming-of-age movie directed and written by Steven Chbosky who also wrote the book it was based on. The circumstances that the writer of the original book also directs the following movie are already special on its own and judging by the resulting work it's a combination that should happen more often. The plot revolves around Charlie beautifully portrayed by Logan Lerman, a teenage boy suffering from depression and loneliness after his best friend shot himself a year prior and other severe childhood drama. He starts his first year in High School and doesn't know how to connect to other students. Eventually he meets Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his step sister Sam (Emma Watson) at a football game and is quickly accepted into their group of older senior Highschoolers. From then on the movie explores Charlies development inside this new group, his first experiences with drugs, sex and romance and the struggles of the individual characters in the group.
So basically the usual coming-of-age teen stuff judging from the synopsis alone. But what makes these stereotypical plot points of every teen movie stand out in this particular movie is how it is able to construct a meaningful connection to the characters. This is especially well conveyed through the acting of everyone involved. The three main characters Charlie, Sam and Patrick of course stick out the most as they carry the largest part of the emotional baggage everyone deals with in this critical time. But they aren't the only ones excelling in this discipline. The supporting cast is equally capable, I particularly liked Mae Whitman in her role as the buddhist/punk rock girl of the group and at some point more or less accidental love interest of Charlie.
So, before I get into more detail I have to mention that I often have my problems with American teen movies. Firstly just because I'm not American and am therefore not familiar with some terms and concepts. I have no clue, when someone is considered to be a junior, freshman, sophomore or senior. I have no clue about the college system or test scores. And then there is the general youth culture stuff everyone over there seems to go through. For example I don't know what a prom is really about. We only had one bigger party organized by the school when we graduated over here and from American movies you get the impression something like that is happening every other month. Coupled with the display of everyone driving a car by the age of 16, I sometimes can't imagine that a life portrayed like this is altogether possible. Like I mentioned in my life there was only one school party you could maybe call something like a prom when I graduated grammar school at 18 and I can't think of any big house parties like it's always portrayed in these kind of movies, let alone having the freedom of being allowed to drive a car under the age of 18. Therefore some concepts or plot points sometimes seem a bit strange to my German eyes that experienced a quite different upbringing at times and that makes it difficult for me at certain points to relate to what happens in the movie.
The perks of being a wallflower has a metric shitton of these moments. But at times where I would discard lesser movies as the usual clichèd teenie mass-produced entertainment, I didn't really care in this movie. As strange as some things might seem to me the writing of the characters makes it believable again. If you have seen the movie you probably know what I am talking about. For those who haven't let this be your SPOILER warning.
Let's talk about the theater play the main group of characters seem to perform on a regular basis. When I watched the movie for the first time I found it very weird that a bunch of underage "kids" basically had their own play of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I mean I saw that movie at a young age, too, before I even understood English actually. It portrays some mature topics of sexuality, transgenderism and also violence. And while I don't want to discredit it in any way or say that it will corrupt children and teenagers or any such insane stuff, watching that movie/musical is still something else than playing it in real time with matching costumes. I know I would feel a bit uncomfortable to watch teenagers dancing in kind of revealing dessous live on stage, no matter what positive message the play wants to convey. But the thing is, in the context of the movie performing a play like this perfectly matches the interests and personalities of the main group of characters. They are artsy, experimental, extremely individual, loving and absolutely self-confident people within their circle of friends and it's constantly implied that these teenagers have a very bright future in major universities and colleges ahead of them. So it really fits that they are comfortable with their play and they try to live the accepting morale of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in their daily life. They are not like others, they are their own genius weirdos formed by their very own individual emotional backstories. And that way they express themselves.
I took this plot point that I found really peculiar the first time as a starting point to analyse why the writer would build something as distracting as this into his work. And from that point on the characters grew quite a bit in my mind. Their behavior made more sense, their drama hit me harder and I learned something new about story writing yet again. Patrick is the one character that stuck out the most for me in this point. In his real life he is in love with football player Brad who had a really hard time coming to terms with his own homosexuality and who lives in constant fear of his father finding out. Patrick therefore has to hide his relationship with him and although he says it doesn't bother him he still suffers from it. Him playing the role of Dr. Frank N. Furter gives him the opportunity to express himself freely to a public audience as an openly flamboyant sexually ambivalent character without fear of any repercussions.
The play also is a big turning point for the protagonist Charlie. When the actor for the role of Rocky doesn't show up Charlie is more or less shoved into the role and for the first time in his life really is in the middle of attention, and he actually enjoys it. In that moment he isn't the eponymous wallflower that only watches and reflects for once, but a real active member of something.
Charlie is a difficult character, written to be a perfect sample of a mentally troubled teenager struggling with fitting into the new High School dynamic. He has apparently quite some talent in writing and gets constantly supplied with new books by his English teacher Bill (Paul Rudd). Over the course of the movie we get to know some of the reasons for his mental problems. His best friend shot himself a year prior and Charlie had to take an extra year of Middle School because he needed treatment for that trauma among other deeper lying conditions. At the end of the movie right before his older senior friends go off to college he finally gets together with Sam, whom he crushed over for nearly the entire movie, but never had the courage to ask out. But courage is not the only thing he lacked. When Sam dated a guy from college for some time Charlie asked his teacher Bill why some people choose love interests that are clearly bad for them. Bill answers with: "We accept the love we think we deserve."
This one statement basically sets the theme for every main character's relationship up until the end. Charlie doesn't ask Sam out not only because he doesn't have the guts. No, he doesn't even think he would deserve Sam. He wants to see her happy and constantly puts everyone before him because he deems himself worthless. His relationship with Mary-Sue is similar. He kind of slipped into it by accident, then while it lasted he was constantly annoyed by her but he was too cowardly to say anything or just break up, because again he puts Mary-Sue's feelings before himself and before what would objectively be the best decision. He accepts his new reality because he thinks he deserves it for being such a coward. In the end he again kind of accidentally slips out of the relationship and gets cast out of the group for some time. The acceptance of his cowardice therefore only made everything worse.
Getting together with Sam challenges his way of thinking. He doesn't want to weigh down Sam with his problems, he thinks he doesn't deserve her and therefore he is surprised when Sam asks him why he didn't ever ask her out. Doing that right in the beginning probably would have saved both of them a lot of hurt and it turns out you don't have to always beat yourself down, telling yourself you don't deserve another person. You don't have to accept anything because you think you deserve it if it's doing you no good. You have to get yourself in order, look out for yourself, don't always put everyone else before you and be open about your surroundings. Charlie always wanted his friends to be happy and therefore didn't say anything when Sam engaged in yet another one-sided, cold relationship with a cheating douchebag or when Patrick clearly seemed to suffer under his secret relationship with Brad who was so afraid of his dad that he was ready to hurt his love interest over it. Charlie didn't even think that Sam could be in any way interested in him, yet she clearly showed him quite a bit of affection when she gave him his first kiss.
I think Sam too subconsciously knew that being with Charlie would probably be the right thing to do from the beginning. She tried to get a reaction out of him, to get him to make the first step, because she herself again wasn't brave enough. Just like Charlie she didn't think she would deserve someone as sweet and innocent as him due to her turbulent past. She used to go to parties where she would be made drunk and taken advantage of. She regrets this time and blames herself for it and she doesn't want to burden Charlie with it. Both him and her have massive problems of their own which they don't want to pack onto each other. Just at the very end when they finally talk about their weird limbo relationship status they finally come to the conclusion that they can help each other better than everyone fending for themselves. They finally realize they are both fucked up but they can complement each other. Sam needs the kind loving nature and appreciation of Charlie and Charlie needs help interacting with his surroundings and he needs an anchor of stability in his life. They finally get together and then for Charlie it is promptly taken away again.
The moment he has to let Sam go to college he is reminded of the last person he loved as much as her. Over the course of the movie we often see flashbacks of Charlie with his aunt Helen. He tells us that he could always talk to her and that they had a very special bond. But then she got killed in an accident and Charlie always thought that this was the root of his problems. The sudden loss of a loved family member. It is only at the very end when he is reminded of that loss by Sam leaving that he remembers what his mind has surpressed all these years. His aunt sexually abused him when he was a little child and told him that this was their little secret. After she died he felt responsible for it and completely buried the memory of the abuse. Charlie suffers a breakdown and ends up in a hospital. Through his realisation and acceptance of what really happened and the support of his new friend group and especially Sam he can recover. It was only through him meeting Patrick, Sam and the rest of this ragtag group and experiencing love and loss again that his real buried memories of his childhood trauma were triggered. That low point was necessary for him to get better in the end and to have a more fulfilled live without constantly beating himself down and deeming himself unworthy of affection. The movie ends on a really positive note as Patrick, Sam and Charlie drive through a tunnel listening to David Bowie's "Heroes" in Patricks pickup truck just like they did on the evening when Charlie made the first step to approach these two and therefore lift himself up out of his misery in the end. It is a very positive note and it let's you hope that all will be okay eventually for those people you as the viewer yourself learned to love over the course of the movie.
So at the end of this text I just wanted to say that my review and analysis skills are still developing. I realised that I got carried away way too much from the actual topic and I often lost my thread in this review alone. So please, if anybody reads this and thinks it's a load of bullshit, that is totally fair. I don't want to write real reviews, I just want to get my thoughts out and maybe start a discussion. Writing is not my strongest suit, especially as English isn't my native language. I really enjoyed The perks of being a wallflower and wanted to give a little insight into why I consider it far superior to other more traditional teen movies. I hope I could get that across.
Thank you and see you in the next round of rambling!
The perks of being a wallflower is a 2012 coming-of-age movie directed and written by Steven Chbosky who also wrote the book it was based on. The circumstances that the writer of the original book also directs the following movie are already special on its own and judging by the resulting work it's a combination that should happen more often. The plot revolves around Charlie beautifully portrayed by Logan Lerman, a teenage boy suffering from depression and loneliness after his best friend shot himself a year prior and other severe childhood drama. He starts his first year in High School and doesn't know how to connect to other students. Eventually he meets Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his step sister Sam (Emma Watson) at a football game and is quickly accepted into their group of older senior Highschoolers. From then on the movie explores Charlies development inside this new group, his first experiences with drugs, sex and romance and the struggles of the individual characters in the group.
So basically the usual coming-of-age teen stuff judging from the synopsis alone. But what makes these stereotypical plot points of every teen movie stand out in this particular movie is how it is able to construct a meaningful connection to the characters. This is especially well conveyed through the acting of everyone involved. The three main characters Charlie, Sam and Patrick of course stick out the most as they carry the largest part of the emotional baggage everyone deals with in this critical time. But they aren't the only ones excelling in this discipline. The supporting cast is equally capable, I particularly liked Mae Whitman in her role as the buddhist/punk rock girl of the group and at some point more or less accidental love interest of Charlie.
So, before I get into more detail I have to mention that I often have my problems with American teen movies. Firstly just because I'm not American and am therefore not familiar with some terms and concepts. I have no clue, when someone is considered to be a junior, freshman, sophomore or senior. I have no clue about the college system or test scores. And then there is the general youth culture stuff everyone over there seems to go through. For example I don't know what a prom is really about. We only had one bigger party organized by the school when we graduated over here and from American movies you get the impression something like that is happening every other month. Coupled with the display of everyone driving a car by the age of 16, I sometimes can't imagine that a life portrayed like this is altogether possible. Like I mentioned in my life there was only one school party you could maybe call something like a prom when I graduated grammar school at 18 and I can't think of any big house parties like it's always portrayed in these kind of movies, let alone having the freedom of being allowed to drive a car under the age of 18. Therefore some concepts or plot points sometimes seem a bit strange to my German eyes that experienced a quite different upbringing at times and that makes it difficult for me at certain points to relate to what happens in the movie.
The perks of being a wallflower has a metric shitton of these moments. But at times where I would discard lesser movies as the usual clichèd teenie mass-produced entertainment, I didn't really care in this movie. As strange as some things might seem to me the writing of the characters makes it believable again. If you have seen the movie you probably know what I am talking about. For those who haven't let this be your SPOILER warning.
Let's talk about the theater play the main group of characters seem to perform on a regular basis. When I watched the movie for the first time I found it very weird that a bunch of underage "kids" basically had their own play of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I mean I saw that movie at a young age, too, before I even understood English actually. It portrays some mature topics of sexuality, transgenderism and also violence. And while I don't want to discredit it in any way or say that it will corrupt children and teenagers or any such insane stuff, watching that movie/musical is still something else than playing it in real time with matching costumes. I know I would feel a bit uncomfortable to watch teenagers dancing in kind of revealing dessous live on stage, no matter what positive message the play wants to convey. But the thing is, in the context of the movie performing a play like this perfectly matches the interests and personalities of the main group of characters. They are artsy, experimental, extremely individual, loving and absolutely self-confident people within their circle of friends and it's constantly implied that these teenagers have a very bright future in major universities and colleges ahead of them. So it really fits that they are comfortable with their play and they try to live the accepting morale of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in their daily life. They are not like others, they are their own genius weirdos formed by their very own individual emotional backstories. And that way they express themselves.
I took this plot point that I found really peculiar the first time as a starting point to analyse why the writer would build something as distracting as this into his work. And from that point on the characters grew quite a bit in my mind. Their behavior made more sense, their drama hit me harder and I learned something new about story writing yet again. Patrick is the one character that stuck out the most for me in this point. In his real life he is in love with football player Brad who had a really hard time coming to terms with his own homosexuality and who lives in constant fear of his father finding out. Patrick therefore has to hide his relationship with him and although he says it doesn't bother him he still suffers from it. Him playing the role of Dr. Frank N. Furter gives him the opportunity to express himself freely to a public audience as an openly flamboyant sexually ambivalent character without fear of any repercussions.
The play also is a big turning point for the protagonist Charlie. When the actor for the role of Rocky doesn't show up Charlie is more or less shoved into the role and for the first time in his life really is in the middle of attention, and he actually enjoys it. In that moment he isn't the eponymous wallflower that only watches and reflects for once, but a real active member of something.
Charlie is a difficult character, written to be a perfect sample of a mentally troubled teenager struggling with fitting into the new High School dynamic. He has apparently quite some talent in writing and gets constantly supplied with new books by his English teacher Bill (Paul Rudd). Over the course of the movie we get to know some of the reasons for his mental problems. His best friend shot himself a year prior and Charlie had to take an extra year of Middle School because he needed treatment for that trauma among other deeper lying conditions. At the end of the movie right before his older senior friends go off to college he finally gets together with Sam, whom he crushed over for nearly the entire movie, but never had the courage to ask out. But courage is not the only thing he lacked. When Sam dated a guy from college for some time Charlie asked his teacher Bill why some people choose love interests that are clearly bad for them. Bill answers with: "We accept the love we think we deserve."
This one statement basically sets the theme for every main character's relationship up until the end. Charlie doesn't ask Sam out not only because he doesn't have the guts. No, he doesn't even think he would deserve Sam. He wants to see her happy and constantly puts everyone before him because he deems himself worthless. His relationship with Mary-Sue is similar. He kind of slipped into it by accident, then while it lasted he was constantly annoyed by her but he was too cowardly to say anything or just break up, because again he puts Mary-Sue's feelings before himself and before what would objectively be the best decision. He accepts his new reality because he thinks he deserves it for being such a coward. In the end he again kind of accidentally slips out of the relationship and gets cast out of the group for some time. The acceptance of his cowardice therefore only made everything worse.
Getting together with Sam challenges his way of thinking. He doesn't want to weigh down Sam with his problems, he thinks he doesn't deserve her and therefore he is surprised when Sam asks him why he didn't ever ask her out. Doing that right in the beginning probably would have saved both of them a lot of hurt and it turns out you don't have to always beat yourself down, telling yourself you don't deserve another person. You don't have to accept anything because you think you deserve it if it's doing you no good. You have to get yourself in order, look out for yourself, don't always put everyone else before you and be open about your surroundings. Charlie always wanted his friends to be happy and therefore didn't say anything when Sam engaged in yet another one-sided, cold relationship with a cheating douchebag or when Patrick clearly seemed to suffer under his secret relationship with Brad who was so afraid of his dad that he was ready to hurt his love interest over it. Charlie didn't even think that Sam could be in any way interested in him, yet she clearly showed him quite a bit of affection when she gave him his first kiss.
I think Sam too subconsciously knew that being with Charlie would probably be the right thing to do from the beginning. She tried to get a reaction out of him, to get him to make the first step, because she herself again wasn't brave enough. Just like Charlie she didn't think she would deserve someone as sweet and innocent as him due to her turbulent past. She used to go to parties where she would be made drunk and taken advantage of. She regrets this time and blames herself for it and she doesn't want to burden Charlie with it. Both him and her have massive problems of their own which they don't want to pack onto each other. Just at the very end when they finally talk about their weird limbo relationship status they finally come to the conclusion that they can help each other better than everyone fending for themselves. They finally realize they are both fucked up but they can complement each other. Sam needs the kind loving nature and appreciation of Charlie and Charlie needs help interacting with his surroundings and he needs an anchor of stability in his life. They finally get together and then for Charlie it is promptly taken away again.
The moment he has to let Sam go to college he is reminded of the last person he loved as much as her. Over the course of the movie we often see flashbacks of Charlie with his aunt Helen. He tells us that he could always talk to her and that they had a very special bond. But then she got killed in an accident and Charlie always thought that this was the root of his problems. The sudden loss of a loved family member. It is only at the very end when he is reminded of that loss by Sam leaving that he remembers what his mind has surpressed all these years. His aunt sexually abused him when he was a little child and told him that this was their little secret. After she died he felt responsible for it and completely buried the memory of the abuse. Charlie suffers a breakdown and ends up in a hospital. Through his realisation and acceptance of what really happened and the support of his new friend group and especially Sam he can recover. It was only through him meeting Patrick, Sam and the rest of this ragtag group and experiencing love and loss again that his real buried memories of his childhood trauma were triggered. That low point was necessary for him to get better in the end and to have a more fulfilled live without constantly beating himself down and deeming himself unworthy of affection. The movie ends on a really positive note as Patrick, Sam and Charlie drive through a tunnel listening to David Bowie's "Heroes" in Patricks pickup truck just like they did on the evening when Charlie made the first step to approach these two and therefore lift himself up out of his misery in the end. It is a very positive note and it let's you hope that all will be okay eventually for those people you as the viewer yourself learned to love over the course of the movie.
So at the end of this text I just wanted to say that my review and analysis skills are still developing. I realised that I got carried away way too much from the actual topic and I often lost my thread in this review alone. So please, if anybody reads this and thinks it's a load of bullshit, that is totally fair. I don't want to write real reviews, I just want to get my thoughts out and maybe start a discussion. Writing is not my strongest suit, especially as English isn't my native language. I really enjoyed The perks of being a wallflower and wanted to give a little insight into why I consider it far superior to other more traditional teen movies. I hope I could get that across.
Thank you and see you in the next round of rambling!
To try to clear up some confusion, first year students are called freshmen, followed by sophmores, then juniors, and finally seniors. Though it's also used for college students, they're really terms we use in high school as college students (at least at the school I went to) attended at all sorts of ages and for a different number of years.
ReplyDeleteFor example, not feeling like I was in any hurry, I took my time going through college and only signing up for courses I could afford to pay. So I was in college for seven years? Honestly, I never kept track of what years I attended, but that sounds about right. At least it wasn't ridiculously stressful working full-time and going to school part-time.
But yeah, not sure why we use those particular terms as they were rarely ever used and you could've just said, "I'm a first year student" just as easily...
As for prom, it's really only a one-time event towards the end of the senior year. It definitely receives a lot of hype (which is why you'll always hear about it in movies) as we're expected to get a date, dress up, dance, and maybe get drunk and lose our virginity.
Anyway, I didn't attend mine, so I can't really say how accurate that was, haha.
But yeah, young drivers. I remember walking to school one morning and seeing one particularly rich classmate driving a fancy sports car and just thinking to myself, "What the hell?!? That kid's a baby, just like me!"
It's a thing, but definitely not something everyone was doing. Just a small percentage, I would say. Maybe around 5%? I mean, we didn't really have any parking space to begin with.
That said, RHPS is definitely a play high school kids sometimes put on, apparently.
No, I don't get it either. Those outfits are just a breeze and a sneeze away from breaking laws! Not to mention having parents show up to watch half-naked teens! Yeah, I can't explain it.
Good entry, man! I've never watched it before, but it sounds worth checking out, even if I now know how it all ends. Guess spoilers generally aren't deal-breakers for me, personally.
And don't sweat the English stuff! I understood all of it, and it's far more intelligible than what many folks here are capable of typing :)
Hey thanks dude,
DeleteI appreciate your explanation, that will help me a lot with further movies I'll see. I can't say we have something similar in Germany really. Classes 11 and 12 (and for some states 13) are called the Oberstufe, but other than that it's mostly just the grade number that gets referred to.
So prom is kind of the same as our final graduation party, only that that didn't get hyped at all really. We were only there for a couple of hours or something and then left to attend private parties in different groups.
But I definitely would have loved to be able to drive a car on my own at 16, just to have the possibility alone would be awesome. I finished driving school when I turned 17, but in Germany you are just allowed to drive a car with a parent or other licensed driver. Thankfully you are allowed to drive a small motorbike under 50ccm, so something like a Vespa for example. I had an old Simson motorbike from GDR production that at least made a 70km/h, so that was not too shabby. Still not really suited for a longer spontaneous road trip or something.
I'm glad you won't get turned away from the movie by these spoilers. I hope my Spoiler warning is noticable enough. It's really a great, empathic experience with a stellar cast and the relatively undisclosed time period it is set in adds this element of timelessness. I can only recommend it.
I'm not sure when I'll post my next entry. It's still in the works but I'm a bit lazy right now. I can only say that it'll be about a quite different, more suspenseful than this one.