The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I love coming of age stories but I’ve recently picked up on a pretty worrisome trend. It seems like all of the youth in them fall for these young cute girls who have little boys haircuts, dress like boys or would look way too comfortable at a K.D. Lang concert. One of my favorite movies is Real Genius starring skinny Val Kilmer where he shows young Mitch the ropes in college but for some reason Mitchy Mitch falls for the annoying spastic brunette who talks a million miles a minute instead of going after the naughty SAT groupie. I’m not saying  I wouldn’t at least motorboat the spaz but seriously, how dirty do you think a girl is that hunts for dudes with high SAT scores? I’m just saying, he might have come of age a bit quicker had he made a different choice. Also look at Just One of the Guys; Teri cuts her hair and literally dresses like a boy for most of the movie including stuffing her pants with socks to give herself a package. And yet, her new best friend falls for her. Again, I’m not saying I wouldn’t bang (especially with her C cups) but it might have taken me just a bit of time to at least do some research to assure myself she wasn’t undergoing a sex change.  

Well in The Perks of Being a Wallflower our star Charlie (Logan Lerman) falls hard for Sam, who is played wonderfully by Harry Potter’s Emma Watson. Ok, first of all her name is Sam so we’re already off to a weird start, and her hair is almost as short as mine.  But Sam is really cute, has great taste in music, and clearly needs to be saved from herself. So naturally Charlie gravitates to her especially considering he’s a troubled teen as well.  For most of the movie Charlie’s family keeps referring to this episode he had last summer that he had to go away for to get help with. Throughout the movie they peel back more layers of his history and you not only see why Charlie is so socially inept but it makes you wonder how he’s even able to leave his house. It’s kind of like Precious but for middle class white kids. Thankfully he finally runs into a good group of friends who happen to all be seniors but aren’t necessarily a part of the cool crowd. And initially the movie starts out with them trying to help Charlie fit in but because they each have their own issues they find themselves being helped by Charlie as well. 

Now normally that last line alone would’ve kept me from seeing the movie but the great thing about Wallflower is that it never gets overly sappy.  With all of the hard core issues it deals with which include gay bashing, suicide, depression, and Kleptomania  just to name a few,  it’s actually quite funny at times and you never feel like there is too much going on at once for this to actually be real. I’m sure it helps that Stephen Chbosky who wrote the book , also wrote the screenplay and directed the movie. The only issue with him is that at times he tries to remain too true to the book so the movie drags at times. But overall it’s a good movie and even though the only two girls that Charlie dates have short hair and could pass as boys during a gay rights rally,  I would rate this movie as slightly FRESH. And yes, I just gave a young adult novel that was converted to a movie that rating. I must now go see something with kung fu or gun play to cleanse myself.