The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
by Chiara Spagnoli

‘The Perks Of Being A Wallflower’ started out as a coming-of-age epistolary novel, written by the American writer Stephen Chbosky: it was published in February of 1999 by MTV and in 2012 was made into a movie starring Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller, Emma Watson, and was directed by the author.

The fact it was Chbosky’s eye behind the camera, moulding his own words into live action, creates a majestic piece of film art that enhances his original novel and is faithful to the  entire exploration of an introverted adolescence intersecting with abuse, drugs, sexuality and the awkward moments of the in-between age.

The story takes place in a suburb of Pittsburgh during the early 1990s. Charlie is a freshman in high school and is having difficulty fitting in, as he is a shy, sensitive and unconventional thinker. Things seem to improve once he joins the “island of misfit toys” with Patrick, Sam and their group of friends, but some of his childhood skeletons in the closet, going back to when his Aunt Helen died, have the urge to come out.

All the actors’ performances are remarkable: the amusing witty Patrick (Ezra Miller), the observant and judicious Charlie (Logan Lerman), the punk-Buddhist opinionated Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman). Not to mention Emma Watson’s outstanding way of creating Sam’s character, wacky, profound and at times also sassy. For all ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ fans out there, it will literally blow your mind to see how Hermione succumbs an enchantment and turns into Janet Weiss; Susan Sarandon would bow to Emma Watson’s impersonation of her.

The delicate touch of ‘The Perks Of Being A Wallflower’ somehow recalls ‘The Elegance Of The Hedgehog’ and how coy, pure souls, who clam up to externalised pain, are great observers of the world around them, and their advantage is often the invisibility cloak they allow others to toss upon them.

The unique sensitive trait that distinguishes Charlie, from the rest of his high school mates, evokes the 1956 movie starring Grace Kelly, ‘The Swan’: Princess Alexandra is reminded how her father used to call her his swan, and how she was supposed to glide like a dream on the smooth surface of the lake and never go to the shore, for on dry land, where ordinary people walk, the swan is awkward, waddling up the like a goose.

In the same way Charlie has to embrace who he is and mingle in the group without giving up his true nature, just as his other friends, just as every single adolescent facing the time of change.

Growing up is described with all its nuances, the mistakes, and how beating yourself small may lead to the wrong choices where “we accept the love we think we deserve” or opt to  take refuge in the role of observers, missing out on life’s participation.

But since “we can’t choose where we come from but we can choose where we go from there,” when any form of self-pity gets kicked out of the way to let in the courage to be more demanding with ourselves and we actually go for it, “that moment when you know you’re not a sad story, you are alive,” in that fragment of utter joy “we are infinite.”

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