Ryan McNeil
Watching THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER got me thinking about my own teenage years (don’t worry, this won’t be a love letter to 1994). Like everyone else I have a fondness for the culture, the music, the fun, and the endless energy, but they give way to so many other wonderful things in life. Were I to sit here and bemoan their passing, I’d feel more than a tad silly. However, if there’s one thing I do miss, it’s the way that part of one’s life opens itself up to new friends.
It’s a phenomenon that vanishes as we age, and something we end up missing: That moment when within a matter of weeks, we can become so important to a group of people that they would make us feel special and safe.
Charlie (Logan Lerman) is beginning high school sometime around 1990, and having some trouble in adapting to his new surroundings. He has no friends, his older acquaintances aren’t taking him under their wing, and his parents don’t know where to begin where advice is concerned. They are worried about him though – there are signs that he has had recent bouts with depression, so his acceptance is something they quietly wish for even if they can’t help him find it.
At the homecoming football game, Charlie makes a bold move and reaches out to another misfit named Patrick (Ezra Miller). Ezra is an eccentric who sees far more value in people than most of the materialistic students at the high school, so he brings Charlie into his circle of friends without hesitation. The first person he introduces Charlie to is his step-sister Sam (Emma Watson); a free-spirited girl who loves good music and artistic spirits. Like Patrick, she sees something special in Charlie and strikes up a fast friendship. However, on Charlie’s side of the table, the feelings between them become a bit more intense.
The story follows the three along with their friends Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman) and Alice (Erin Wilhelmi) as they navigate their senior year: A year that will be dotted with laughter, love, heartbreak, music, and loss.
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER is a poem dedicated to those wonderful years of self-discovery we all go through from age thirteen to age eighteen. Remember that stretch? (Some readers of this site are still living them) It’s the point in time where so much of what we discover and experience seems so much more wonderful. The alcohol is as delicious as forbidden fruit, the love is sixteen times more intense, the drama feels like it could end our entire existence. And then there’s the music – songs we take on like personal philosophies, a seemingly endless ocean of joy waiting to be discovered.
A friend of mine actually wondered how it could be possible that the characters in this film could be so into The Smiths and Nick Drake, and yet they don’t know that it’s David Bowie singing “Heroes”. For me, that detail actually underlines a lot of my earlier point. High school is all about coming across bits and pieces for the first time, and often we don’t come across them in the right order. So sure, it’s reasonable to assume that these characters could live and breathe the arty-er music of the moment, but not know about the music that got them there.
The point isn’t that they haven’t heard of “Heroes”, so much as it is their reaction when they do. Charlie, Patrick, and Sam are the sorts of people who use voices of past heroes to help them express what they want of their present. So whether it’s David Bowie for Sam, or Tim Curry for Patrick, or F. Scott Fitzgerald for Charlie, the discovery of these artists is only a sliver of the story; it’s how they identify with them that tells the rest.
Beyond self-discovery, the other core theme of WALLFLOWER is love – specifically the sort of intense, screwed-up love we find ourselves party to growing up. Many of the characters in the film find themselves rather mixed-up where affairs are the heart are concerned, and in fact often we see relationships built on an imbalance of affection. More than once, it’s pointed out, that as humans “We accept the love that we think we deserve”, but I don’t think that tells the whole story.
Some teenagers are lucky enough to approach love the right way, but for many others, love will be a complete nightmare for a while. Some will love people who hurt them, some will love others who don’t love them back, others will love people in inappropriate and perhaps even dangerous ways. All are present in this film, and every character is indelibly changed by what comes of these expressions of love. The thing is though – that’s OK. Our teenage years are the time to experience these messy feelings of love. We’ll never love as intensely as we do then, and we’ll never open ourselves up as widely to the chance of being hurt.
Like those songs that we discover as they suddenly chime out of a car radio, the love we discover will shape our character going forward. Whether we find a person who compliments us perfectly, or we give in to dysfunction and chase a love that is unattainable, it will always be a part of our story…like scars across our heart. What WALLFLOWER seems to want us to remember, is that it’s important to remember how we got those scars.
Many details of THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER feel familiar, and some might see that as a failing of the film. However, I would submit that the familiarity the film exudes comes from the fact that a lot of us felt like losers as teenagers. If we didn’t feel like losers, we felt like romantic poets. If we didn’t feel like romantic poets, we felt like we were living a life of high drama (I could go on, but I feel like you get the point). The familiarity of this film comes from not just other films of its ilk, but also from our own lives. Sure, some of the beats of this story have been told before by other storytellers, and perhaps even told better. Still, they remain worth telling, and WALLFLOWER tells them well.
Words can’t say how much I love this review. I don’t know why, but it is just so beautiful. On another note, I can’t wait for this film. I’m sure it’ll go straight-to-DVD here, which is a real shame. I just really need to see another Ezra Miller film!
Thanks Stevee…I wasn’t really sure anybody would like the direction I was taking with this review. Glad it was able to strike a chord for you: That tells me I managed to get something in it right!
I agree with Stevee, this is a really great review. Love the way you describe those feelings of discovery during those teenage years.
Saw the movie yesterday and it felt like the perfect mix of humor and drama, really loved it.
Thanks Nostra! It’s funny, it felt a little weird to be reflecting on teenage life at my age…but I really couldn’t resist going back and thinking about those feeling for a moment or two
I agree as well, this was really lovely to read. I’m officially looking forward to this film now.
Thanks Brittani! I get the feeling that this is a film a lot of people will discover as time goes on…one that doesn’t do much at the box office, but people talk about to their friends and catches on with the word of mouth.
While you’re waiting to go see it, listen to a lot of Smiths songs: it’ll get you in the mood.
I had a few problems with this movie. It based on a book that I haven’t read so the problems probably relate to the source material rather than the movie, but we judge as we see. 1) the whole Charlie character felt like it had been written by someone who had read Catcher in the Rye one to too many times and loved it just a little too much. 2) the movie was set 20 years ago (that makes the characters a similar age to me), were there really kids that openly gay in American schools back then? There weren’t in England. 1) the central conceit, that your friend wondered about; that group of people who are so into there cool music but have never heard Heroes, I don’t buy that, and if they don’t know it the must recognise it as Bowie.
Having said that, I can forgive it all its flaws as the three young actors are all so good. It also gave a chilling reminder of my student days when I fell into a relationship with a girl I wasn’t that interested in and left it far to late to tell someone else how I felt. I didn’t handle things as badly as Charlie but I might as well have for how things turned out!
Interesting points. Let’s see if I can counter…
1. Charlie doesn’t have anywhere near the anger or malcontent that Holden Caufield does. They both have an anxiousness to them, but Charlie’s is more of a nervous anxiousness. The romance and poetry he sees in everything is a little evocative of Sallinger, but that’s about where the comparison ends for me.
2. I’m a rigged deck where that question is concerned since I went to an art school, where guys *definitely* were. I think it’s plausible, though it wasn’t anything like what it is now. Pittsburgh is a large enough city for it to be possible too. Plus, with all of that said, remind yourself that Patrick had the sort of brash attitude that he would have been ahead of the curve on that sort of thing anyway.
3. It all depends on what you listen to and what your friends listen to. I didn’t discover Bob Marley until I was seventeen, The Ramones until I was eighteen, and The Smiths until I was twenty. I’d heard their songs in passing, but couldn’t have identified the artist. This is also before the days of Google and Shazam. It seems dumb on paper, but it really is true: At that age, your musical exposure depends on what you and those around you listen to…Everything else remains unknown pleasures.
1, no I don’t think you have countered, you have agreed with me and reinforced my thoughts.
2, I asked a gay friend his thoughts on this. He agreed with me on the time the film was set and high school mentality but I do take your point on Patrick’s brash attitude.
3, I see your point but I just don’t buy it. In 1991 I was two or three years younger than these characters and Bowie was in the popular consciousness, far more so than Nick Drake and The Smith they seem to have discovered.
I saw Liberal Arts tonight, the two movies would make a great double bill.
1. How did I reinforce?
2. I think this point tiptoes towards generalizing. As I thought back on it, even in my welcoming art school environment there were gays who were closeted. The point of Patrick being confident trumps all.
3. It’s not completely spelled out what the kids were listening to. Listening habits – ESPECIALLY amongst teenagers – is so subjective. We aren’t told what radio station they were listening to, so it’s possible they were on an end on the dial they don’t normally visit. Just the same way that I could rattle off tracks by The Stones, Van Morrison, and U2 but not Bob Dylan, Joy Division, or The Clash
1 – “Charlie doesn’t have anywhere near the anger or malcontent that Holden Caufield does” but he does have more than your average teen! “The romance and poetry he sees in everything is a little evocative of Sallinger” enough said.
2- I have to concede to your point on this one.
3- I agree with everything you say in principle, but Bowie? I just don’t buy that none of the three of them even vaguely recognised it.
Interesting…
Charlie’s anger and malcontent only bubbles up when things start coming unravelled in the film’s later moments. For the rest of it, he’s a bright-eyed keener just looking to connect. Holden Caufield starts Catcher as a cynic…almost like what might have happened to Charlie if things had continued unravelling for him. We might be going around in circles here, but that’s how I see it.
As for Bowie, what can I say? When I was their age (just five years later), I really only knew Space Oddity, Fame, and Rebel Rebel. You’re right – it seems absurd, but I’ve seen (and been party to) much worse moments of being musically sheltered.
Thanks for keeping the discussion going here sir!
(its been twenty years since I read Catcher in the Rye so bare with me) We join Holden Caufield at the end of a traumatic period in his life, there is a lot referred to in the book that happened to him before the narrative starts. Charlie on the other hand? We spend a longer period of time with and have a greater glimpse of his back story along the way but the similarities and influence are there.
I know people now who wouldn’t recognise lots of classic songs now, it just didn’t ring true of this group. that’s the other issue, I remember hearing songs in the past that I didn’t know but people around me did, and people asking me if I know something they did not.
By the way, if I haven’t already said so, I do like the film.
“2) the movie was set 20 years ago (that makes the characters a similar age to me), were there really kids that openly gay in American schools back then? ”
From my experience, I knew around 5 kids who were openly gay in my high school between 93 to 97, and they suffered for it.
My own sister was in high school at that time and was closeted but as well knew people who were out. Strangely, them being out just made her feel more ashamed for not being out.
Great review! I also really enjoyed this movie. I read the book some years ago, and I thought they was a great interpretation of it. It made me wish I was a teenager again but simultaneously feel glad that I’m not. Such a beautiful thing.
“…I would submit that the familiarity the film exudes comes from the fact that a lot of us felt like losers as teenagers. If we didn’t feel like losers, we felt like romantic poets. If we didn’t feel like romantic poets, we felt like we were living a life of high drama.” AMEN.
Thanks Shala. I was actually a little unsure of that part of my post. Glad to know it landed for someone.
Awesome job with this post. You summed up so many of the reasons why I loved this movie. I went to high school and college in the ’90s, and there was so much of this film that felt familiar. I didn’t experience some of the trauma of these characters, but that sense of community (and alienation) was definitely there.
I also didn’t mind that the characters didn’t know Bowie. This was the pre-Internet age of mix tapes and word of mouth, so viewing it from today’s perspective makes us jaded. I also agree that this is common in high school, especially as people are discovering the greats from the past. Excellent work on this one, Ryan!