The Perks of Being A Wallflower

Perks is the subject of a bit of a divide in my friends, seemingly stemming primarily from whether people are familiar with the original book or not. As is the case in the majority of these situations, my movie viewing came with a staggering lack of awareness of the written version, a fact which was subsequently very rapidly rectified. Regardless of my initially insufficient appreciation of literature however, the film placed me firmly and without question on the positive side of the fence. While at its heart a seemingly basic coming of age story, the whole thing in fact caught me more than a little off-guard in how it affected me. Undoubtedly part of the impact lies in how much I found I could identify with the eponymous wallflower (in this case Logan Lerman, who certainly ups the film's rank in the gay stakes), but there is something so beautiful in the story and the way the super-talented cast tell it that makes it instantly compelling. Even beyond that though, never before has a movie moved me so dramatically, and for such an extended period, that I have felt forced to buy and read the book version within 12 hours of even finishing the film. And while I find it almost impossible to explain exactly how I felt about the whole affair at the time, it is perhaps unsurprising that the single closest description I have found comes in the simple yet poetically predictive form of the opening few lines of both film and book; "I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be".

Ladies and gentlemen, take note; eyebrow acting at its very best.