Emotional Distress in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"

It’s a very good movie. I was impressed particularly by how the two poles of emotional distress were handled in the film. I say impressed because these are the two sorts of people that I’ve encountered so seeing their struggles dramatized in the film was very encouraging. Patrick is the person who’s loud about their neuroses. This can be exhausting - especially when it becomes the person’s schtick - but Ezra Miller grounded it impeccably through the relationship with the athlete as the true side of himself that no-one wants to see. The school certainly doesn’t want to know that one of their own is gay like this misfit outsider Patrick. So he’s stuck in this limbo which he tries to minimize through his bright outer shell. There’s a lot of hurt inside of him and he’s trying not to let it consume him. Charlie, on the other hand, is constantly struggling with the attempt not to be consumed. Charlie is the person who’s quiet about their brokenness. I almost feel like this person has a more difficult path to recovery as it feels like there’s a form of shame to revealing this brokenness then having to share it - or burden them with it as the thinking goes here - with others. Almost as if being hurt and “abnormal” has to remain a secret; the more it remains a secret the more it feels like your own fault therefore more shame and more secrets. Logan Lerman is (brilliant if also) rather difficult to watch because he spends the entire film as a walking, open wound. He doesn’t lash out - well, until the end - or call attention to what’s wrong. The ways he speaks is off, the way he looks at something is glassy, and the way he becomes silent is suggestive. It’s scary, but also heartbreaking. However, as a balance, when given positive attention he becomes responsive and thriving. The awkwardness is still there, but the person is more dynamic. It’s a very good balance of the two parts of him. This rich, sympathetic handling of Patrick and Charlie is the best feature of the film. The whole film is good - the casting of the girls is excellent and they also become another rich element of the film - but now when there’s so much evidence of (male) teenage emotional disorder this movie works as an effective document for everyone wanting to see it from this vantage point. Ezra Miller and Logan Lerman both work very hard here to make the drama poignant and touching. It’s a difficult movie to experience if any of these feelings are part of you, but it’s encouraging that the love and respect for these characters is so intensely sympathetic and not cliched or needlessly depressing.

The Joys of Community in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"

Community is the richest theme in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This theme stuck out for me because there is a scene near the end of the film where Charlie and his family is gathered around the table for dinner. Released from the institution, Charlie is back together with himself and now his family. After all of the preceding trouble, it seems that now he is on stable ground. At that point, he is reunited with Patrick and Sam as they are now in town for a visit from college. We are treated to a re-visitation from a scene earlier in the movie as this theme of community is presented as the conclusion of the film.

This is not the complete treatment of this theme, however. Earlier in the movie, Charlie's disunity with himself and others is the major undercurrent to the unity for which he searches throughout most of the film. Charlie is separated from others due to various forms of inner turmoil. A member of his family has failed him and the remainder of his family with whom he lives is not entirely aware of how he feels. Even his sister's relationship with a boyfriend looks dysfunctional. At school, he is out of step with everyone else and greatly fears this situation. He is counting down the number of days of high school that awaits him, literally. He searches for a chosen community on his first day of school: a peer named Patrick. (Charlie also becomes close to his English teacher, but the age difference as well as mentorship inflects this positively informed relationship quite differently.) He finds another peer - a girl named Sam - at a school football game where he sits with Patrick. Both of these new friends are seniors yet Charlie does not seem to notice the limited amount of time he will have with them.

Charlie's outsider-hood soon becomes apparent to Patrick and Sam. They befriend him and bring him into their circle. A community has chosen Charlie as he has chosen them. The remainder of the film will show the highs and lows of this group friendship. Like a noir hero, however, Charlie's past will not forsake him. Rendered in charming and loving scenes, this past torment is absent for some time. In three separate instances, however, trouble swoops into Charlie's life to render him weaker and weaker. This is why the penultimate sequence of the movie feels so rich. Charlie comes back to himself, makes peace with his family, and is comforted by the ones with whom he has spent so much of the movie. It is a beautiful depiction of situations and feelings that make him whole. He is less isolated, he is less tortured, he is loved. No wonder he feels infinite. His whole life is before him at last.