It’s been ages since I’ve seen a film. Well no, scrap that. It’s been ages since I’ve seen a film I’ve paid for! Hah! I last saw The Sessions after I was given a free pass, and I watched around 35 films as a judge at The Other Film Festival, and I watched (and slept through) about 12 films on my flights – The Lucky One and One Day were my favourites (an international flight is just a very expensive way of going to the cinema really!). I watched an awkward film in New York – the one about people my parents’ age rekindling their sex life. Mum watched it too. Awkward! And I saw two films in London – Magic Mike and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It’s cheap to see films overseas (I did pay for those three!)

Last Saturday I decided to escape from the world for two hours and see a film. I chose The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It wasn’t too blockbuster-y and it looked cute. I’m glad I saw it.

Based on the book by Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of a Wallflower is a story of teenage love and coming of age, set in the early 1990s. The film centres around Charlie (Logan Lerman), an introverted writerly type, who has no friends following the suicide of his friend the previous year. He begins high school making one new friend – his English teacher, played by Paul Rudd (who I’ll always remember from Clueless). Although Charlie is too scared to talk aloud in class, his teacher sees his intelligence in Charlie, and sets him additional readings and essays, to which Charlie completes with eagerness. He eventually gravitates to the senior year misfits at high school – he befriends them at a football game. His new friends, Patrick and Sam, close, flamboyant, step siblings, both have their own demons – Patrick (played by Ezra Miller from We Need to Talk About Kevin) is an intelligent prankster, openly gay – dating a secretly gay footballer, and Sam (Emma Watson), a girl with a sexual reputation, who, in Charlie’s eyes, is the most beautiful girl in the world.

There are some beautiful lines in the film, ones that really resonated with me, including:

“It’s just that I don’t want to be somebody’s crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don’t want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too.” ~ Sam

“You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can’t. You have to do things.” ~ Sam

“We accept the love that we think we deserve.” ~ Charlie/his teacher

These lines made me think, and consider how I should go about telling those I love them that I do.

The Perks of a Wallflower is heartwarming and funny at times, but it is dark. The storyline about Patrick’s homosexualilty showed heartbreaking homophobia by other students, and the father of Patrick’s boyfriend, but it also showed wonderful acceptance by his close friends. The film delves into child abuse and post traumatic stress syndrome, through a series of flashbacks to Charlie’s childhood. His Aunt Helen, who he referred to as “the best person in the world until now” to Sam, was the unlikely culprit. “Let this be our little secret”, Aunt Helen said, this memory coming back to haunt Charlie regularly. The girls in the cinema were making sympathetic sounds when Charlie finally found his tribe and kissed the girls, but I’m not sure if they knew how to react when the abuse was revealed, and nor did I. It was sad.

Charlie writes unsent letters to an unnamed friend, perhaps the friend who committed suicide, perhaps to the wider world. His letters help him process his thoughts, and eventually he doesn’t need them anymore. I thought about how writing is therapy, if you’re writing to an audience or to thin air. As long as you have a reader in mind, one who is understanding and whose love is unconditional.

And I loved the acceptance his friends have for him, and above all, the acceptance he has for himself. Even with a footballer jock boyfriend keeping their relationship a secret, Patrick is fiercely proud of his sexuality. The way the three main characters embrace their differences for the most part, amd still aware of their insecurities, made me wish I had found my tribe at school too. Patrick was like a mentor to the group, offering wisdom and experience to his contemporaries, despite his own insecurities.

And Ezra Miller is beautiful. Stunning.

I am captivated by his face. That smile. Those cheekbones. That hair. He seems just as charismatic off screen as his character Patrick.

I think I have a new film star crush in Ezra. And I have just bought the book version of The Perks of Being a Wallflower so I can devour more of those beautiful quotes.

(All photos sourced from Google images)