Pop Culture: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

There will come a day when I embed an image that isn't a movie poster, but it is not this day!

Earlier today I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is all about a young boy named Charlie who struggles through the high school experience alongside his friends. I found this movie to be enjoyable, but also terribly sad as it brought up a lot of truths that are so rarely captured by typical high school movies. Struggles with sexual identity, popularity, the search for friends, and even abuse are all revealed, and no character is safe from suffering. And while this may hit a rather morbid note for some, was your time as a high school student so different? I liked this movie because it dealt with things other movies are afraid to. Most importantly, it showed me things that shocked me, but then I remembered that I had already seen and been a part of similar stories in my own life.

I know that there was a book first, and I read it before watching the movie. I am usually quite insistent on reading the book first. I loved it for the same reasons I enjoyed the movie, though I did approve of some of the very subtle changes that author/screenwriter/director Stephen Chbosky made to the character of Charlie. In the movie, Charlie is not quite as oblivious as he is in the book (great job by Logan Lerman, by the way), which was a nice change because I was often frustrated by his naivete in the written version of the story.

Overall, I found The Perks of Being a Wallflower to be a wonderful journey, and I will be listening to the soundtrack for a long time to come. Here's Asleep by The Smiths, the most referenced song in the movie/book:

We are infinite.