The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

In Brief: Charlie (Logan Lerman) sits at home, writing a letter, to no one in particular. He's about to start his first day of High School, and he's nervous. He doesn't have friends, and his day doesn't go very well, except for a senior student Patrick(Ezra Miller) lightening the mood in wood shop. As the week goes by, a chance encounter with Patrick outside of school introduces him to Sam(Emma Watson), another Senior and Patrick sister, and then Charlie falls in with the other 'misfit toys'. But Charlie isn't well, and struggles with his new found friendships.


Logan Lerman lets wallflower down. He doesn't give a terrible performance, he's good at points when surrounded by the far more talented Ezra Miller, Emma Watson or Mae Whitman. But when he's on his own, he generally brings the film down, regularly unable to display emotion passed 'I stubbed my toe'. He's not really believable as someone who's 3 to 4 years younger then the rest of the cast. 

The rest of the supporting cast is under utilized, while fitting into stereotypes for such roles, the relationship between Charlie and his Advanced English Teacher played by Paul Rudd. There could be more there, but its thrown out there so intermittently, with little more then passing off a book.

The story isn't really anything new either, Dealing with fairly typical tropes of a Coming of age story, and they've been done better in a dozen other films, the love interest who's constantly dating ass hats, the gay friend who's partner hasn't come out,  the relationships that are never meant to be. Most of these feel like rushed points, without making much of a impact onto the story as a hole, with everything being wrapped up before progressing to the next plot point, with few exceptions. It all becomes kind of unremarkable, enjoyable still, but unremarkable. Hell, there's a line featured in the trailer 'We accept the love we think we deserve.' that feels like it has more weight to it in the trailer then in the context of the film.

Perks does have a redeeming feature, in a enjoyable soundtrack, filled with music from the 70's and 80's, there's a lot of talk about music in the film, featuring tunes by the Smiths and David Bowie. These scenes's where the music is acknowledged by the characters are some of the best in the film, giving the characters beat to go with. 

In Short, Wallflowers can be a fun film, and has a great cast working around it, and it might be worth seeing just for Ezra Miller. But there are a dozen better films from the genre out there.