It’s hard to do a film about high school nowadays and not have it suck. There are so many television shows that, on a weekly basis, use and exhaust all there is to mine from that time of life: bullies, outcasts, jocks, artsy kids, falling in love for the first time, doing everything for the first time, realizing the adult world is just as flawed as the teenage world, figuring out who you want to be, learning how to fight for the person you want to be, etc.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower somehow stands apart and feels relevant. I think more than anything it is the characters and the acting that pulls this movie through. It’s not as if the character types are anything we haven’t seen before, but here they are portrayed with such honesty and vitality that they rise above cliché and feel true. I know that Emma Watson fought to get this film made, and that Stephen Chbosky was a first-time director adapting his own book, meaning that there was a lot of personal investment in this project, and it shows; it shows in the love that emanates from the characters and how they’re depicted. You can feel the actors actually falling for each other and creating a supportive world around themselves that they are gracious enough to share with audiences; they are young actors experiencing something real and we get to watch. When Logan Lerman’s character falls into a relationship with a girl he doesn’t even like [played by Mae Whitman] I want to say, “I know that! I’ve experienced that!” When Emma Watson’s character turns out to be the school slut, I want to instantly befriend her. And Ezra Miller, well he makes me want to be gay, his character is so full of vitality.
High school is a time and place that can be done so wrong, but these wallflowers do it so right. They embrace the outcasts, and they don’t shy away from the hard issues teens face: sex, drugs, suicide, mental illness; and they capture the beauty of youth: friendship, love, creativity.