Do you remember what it was like to feel invincible and insignificant at the same time? The Perks of Being a Wallflower will make you feel like a teenager again, in the best and the worst ways. At times, the film is heart-wrenching enough to induce your nostalgia to the point that you’ll be back in your bedroom, surrounded by posters of bands, photos of friends, somehow feeling completely alone and wondering if it ever fucking ends. Two minutes later you’re walking into your best friend’s house. Everyone’s there, everyone loves you, and you have no idea what you’re drinking, but you love the way it feels, and you’re hoping more than anything you’ve ever hoped for that it never has to fucking end.
But the beginning of the film made me skeptical. Would this movie be able to make me feel the same way the book did? Then I saw the credits roll: Stephen Chbosky, screenplay writer and director of the production. If you have any qualms about the film’s adherence to the novel, stop now. Buy your ticket knowing that what you’re seeing is the writer’s vision. How often to we actually get to see our favorite author’s imaginations played out before us on a screen?
Chbosky artfully illustrates his words in Perks, beginning by setting up a world of high-school hell. It’s a kitschy opening, one that sets up the traditional freaks & geeks dynamic that is highschool. There’s the nerdy, socially awkward freshman, Charlie, his beautiful older sister and her sensitive boyfriend, the cool football players who bully the underlings, and the artsy punk heroes who save the day. All of this feels incredibly artificial. Come on, was your highschool really this structured and stratified? Yet the heartfelt performances of the actors manage to lend relatability to an otherwise out-there idea of adolescense. Emma Watson and Ezra Miller play Sam and Patrick perfectly. They elicit your sentimental impulse, becoming your personal guides through the all-at-once exhilarating misery of figuring out where you belong in this four-year blur.
In these 100 minutes, you will see yourself somewhere. Whether it’s in the bittersweet complacency of being with someone who’s utterly and irrevocably wrong for you, making friends who become your family and lifeline, or simply floating through parties, happy to be the wayward wallflower who sees and understands: you will not be able to remove yourself from The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This is the timeless quality of Chbosky’s masterpiece. While it is a story about Charlie coming to terms with himself, struggling to make sense of where his world meets everyone else’s, it is ultimately a story of accepting your own imperfections, and demons,and at the sweetest times, the love of those who think you deserve it. Perks isn’t meant to be a perfect adaptation of the book. It’s meant to remind you that at one time, you were perfect and imperfect, happy and sad, dismal and infinite, and you felt it all at once, and even if you’re graduating, getting a job, having kids or just sitting alone at a desk in some classroom, you can feel it again, and again, and again.
Crissy Milazzo is a contributor for The Rutgers Review.