The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky, 2012

4/5

"Perks" has all of the innocence and awkward moments of being a freshman in high school, but also contains the complexity that separates itself from other high school dramedies. Chbosky wrote the book, the screenplay, and directed it so you can rest easy knowing that the popular book is in good hands. It has the snappy dialogue and the naive youthful sense of invincibility that reminds me of "Empire Records" although it is a much better film. Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller and Emma Watson all provide great performances. I haven't seen Ezra Miller since "We Need to Talk About Kevin", which was really night and day compared to this. I am interested in seeing more of his work, he seems to have quite a bit of range. Like "The Virigin Suicides", this film also hit my emotional Achilles heel - the beautiful girl dancing in the middle of the school dance to the cheesy Rock song. Still dont know why that gets to me. Its not like thats the memory I have of my awkward school dances growing up. In fact, they were nothing like that. They were devoid of any spontaneity, or any music that would strike an emotional nerve in me.