Movie Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

3.5 stars out of 5

This is a pretty good movie that maybe could’ve been a terrific movie with a little intervention and pruning. It’s based on some best-selling young-adult book that I never heard of. The screenplay was written by the author, and for good measure, he directed it too. Hey, look at me, I’m multi-talented!

The story revolves around Charlie, mentally unstable and socially awkward high school freshman. It’s Pittsburgh in, well, we’re not told. 1989? 1990? 1993? Still, I was an awkward, music-obsessed teenager in dawn-of-the-90s Pittsburgh so this had the potential of really hitting home with me, as Adventureland did. (Speaking of Dawn of the… and Pittsburgh, kudos for casting local hero Tom Savini as the shop teacher.) Charlie just wants to fit in and talk to girls and he falls in with a group of senior outsiders who turn his life around. There are mix tapes and Rocky Horror and school dances and basement parties. This is all pretty interesting and evocative and often heartfelt. But there is also a lot of other junk going on which kind of gums up the works.

And so we return to Stephen Chbosky, the auteur at hand. I don’t know if this is an autobiographical work, but ooh man it feels autobiographical. You’ve got the English teacher he really connects with (Paul Rudd, in his 4,000th film of the past 3 years) who tells him “I think you could write a book someday.” Gosh, the author did write a book, hmmm! The setting is an extremely ritzy suburb (was that a 10-car garage I saw?) which would usually signal some sort of class-struggle sub-plot. Nope, it’s just where these crazy kids live, and perhaps somewhat distances us normal folk from the proceedings. Is this where Chbosky grew up? And then there are those extra plot elements, just heavy, overly specific things that often signal extreme meaning to the author but not much for the rest of us to grasp onto.

Despite all this, it is still pretty good. Much credit goes to a strong young cast. Logan Lerman, who starred in Jack & Bobby which I watched one episode of in 2004, stars as Charlie. He is solid in the role if a bit bland. The standout here is Ezra Miller (went to high school in Hoboken! Represent!) as Patrick, the gay nerd who is full of life and doesn’t care what you think of him. Second place goes to Emma Watson, dropping out of Hogwarts for some muggle high school. As short-haired Sam, she’s cute as a button and delivers a real genuine, emotion-evoking performance. You can hear her valiantly struggling to maintain an American accent—she over-enunciates quite a bit—but I found that kind of sweet. Good to see her growing as an actor.

Less successful is Dylan McDermott as Charlie’s dad. I’m pretty sure they cast him because he resembles Logan Lerman. But I did not buy him as a rough-around-the-edges hockey-loving Pittsburgh guy. Joan Cusack shows up and was probably told her part was bigger. Rose from Two and Half Men is here too. Did I mention Rudd was in this? Oh yeah, I did. Always good to see him.

I feel like bringing in an outside screenwriter and/or director could’ve smoothed out some of the extraneous plot and really taken this to another level. Or at least someone might’ve addressed my biggest gripe about the movie. An awful lot is hung on “Heroes” by David Bowie being some totally obscure song. What are these wild sounds? They can’t find it and it’s driving them bonkers! OK, it was the pre-Internet, pre-Shazam world, but there was this zany thing called classic-rock radio that played “Heroes” at least once a day. Ask someone at name-dropped record store Eide’s. Or try beloved teacher Rudd. “Hey what is that song that goes: We could be heroes, just for one day?” Rudd will not let you down.