Rent The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

Mixtapes and Missteps - The Perks of Being a Wallflower review by griggs

School on film usually swings between fantasy and trauma; this one tries to stitch them together but doesn’t always hold the seam. The Perks of Being a Wallflower follows Charlie, an awkward new kid taken in by older misfits who offer music, friendship, and a fleeting sense of belonging. It wants to be raw and tender, but often feels a little too neat.

Logan Lerman gives Charlie a quiet fragility, and Emma Watson and Ezra Miller add spark, yet the script undercuts them with clumsy beats. The tone veers into Grange Hill earnestness, spelling out what the actors are already showing. There are moments of real poignancy, but just as many that land like a public-service announcement.

The silliest stretch? Pretending none of these kids had heard Bowie’s Heroes. Absolute nonsense. In the end, the film captures adolescence as both euphoric and bruising, but leans on clichés too often to feel truly infinite.

“Charlie, you’ve got to break up with her.” “I can do that?” - The Perks of Being a Wallflower review by LJ

I was very taken with the film the first time I saw it but on a second watch, after having read the novel, this coming-of-age drama felt ludicrously truncated and important moments were just explained away with narration (feels particularly weird because while reading the book, I felt that it wasn’t as exciting as the film, so I guess I don’t love either version).