The Perks of Being a Wallflower Reviews

Stephen Chbosky's 1990s-set very young adult-oriented book is brilliant, being funny, touching, insightful, thought-provoking and relatable. Hearing that Chbosky also directed and screenplay-adapted, as well as being attracted by the involvement of Paul Rudd and Joan Cusack, expectations were high...and although the book has more depth to the characters and situations those expectations were met.

'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' may not break new ground and it may be clichéd, which may be reasons enough for people to hate it, but considering the main target audience and being based around coming-of-age, teenage angst and high school life these were inevitable. Nonetheless, 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' did a great job making an emotionally varied film that will resonate with most people of all ages and gender.

It is much more than just another high school/teenage angst film, and is a believable depiction of coming-of-age, friendship and hidden torment that makes one nostalgic and remember the fun and difficulties of school life. It's not flawless, some scenes and transitions like the blackouts end rather abruptly, it occasionally descends into schmaltz like with the past flashbacks and the Charlie and Mary Elizabeth relationship while charming is rushed and makes Mary Elizabeth less likable compared to the rest of the film.

However, 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' is beautifully shot and clearly loves the scenery. The music is suitably melancholic and the choice of songs infectious and nostalgia-inducing especially David Bowie and an excerpt of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' in one of 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower's' most entertaining scenes, that made me love that film all over again and captured the immense fun, wildness and danger of seeing it in theatres with an audience.

Chbosky adapts his book admirably, not everything is included which is not unexpected due to it being an adaptation and not every detail can translate to a just over an hour and a half film. The spirit however is there, there are funny moments, thoughtful moments, insightful moments, inspirational moments and poignant moments balanced beautifully. For a film director debut, he also does a more than competent job, actually very impressive and puts directors who did it for years to wildly variable success to shame.

When it comes to the story, it is not perfect in execution but made me care for the characters and their situations and made me laugh, smile, cry and inspired in equal measure. The daring ending is shocking and brought tears to my eyes and credit is due tackling such mature themes with sensitivity and never preaching. The characters are compelling.

Logan Lerman has never been better and being a fellow shy introvert in school it was easy for me to relate to him, while Emma Watson (even with the variable accent) gives one of her better non-Hermione Granger performances and overall. Mae Whitman shows strong comedic chops and Ezra Miller is a real standout on a flamboyant and hilarious role.

Not that the adults are less good. A long way from that, even with less screen time. Paul Rudd is particularly great as the teacher that inspires Charlie the most, again having had an inspirational teacher in school and an even more inspirational head of department at music college that also resonated with me. Joan Cusack only appears at the end but she is very good at being sympathetic yet firm. Again Melanie Lynskey has very short screen time, but she also excels at making us hate her for being the catalyst for Charlie's torment. Kate Walsh and Dylan McDermott have very little to do but fare well too.

Overall, an excellent film that blossoms beautifully despite its faults. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Since I kept hearing some really good things about this movie, I was really eager to check it out. To be honest, at first, I was a little bit worried that it would be yet another feature about a shy kid struggling in high-school but, eventually, it turned out to be maybe not the very best movie in this genre but at least certainly one of the very best. Where should I start? Basically, pretty much everything was pitch-perfect, going from the chosen actors for each part, to the realistic and engrossing relationships between the characters involved. I have to admit that it is sometimes difficult for a European  to really understand the weird connection between the Americans and their high-school time but, with this movie, I was completely able to relate with what the main character was going through. From the moment you come into your new classroom, you start to think that it will never work out and you will probably spend the rest of the year alone sitting in a corner, but, somehow,  you start a trivial conversation with someone, discovering some kindred  spirit and you finally come to the conclusion that, after all, it will be  fine and, if you're lucky, you might even have the best time of your life. Anyway, to conclude, I really liked the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' is a really good film thanks to its great leads (Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, its wonderful music, and its appealing, thoughtful script.

'The Perks of Being A Wallflower' is a movie that would be enjoyed by anyone who enjoyed the Harry Potter series or anyone who enjoys the best movies (of course 'The Perks of Being A Wallflower' is not far from being a great movie/a masterpiece)

It may well turn out that besides the Harry Potter series, the most successful lead is Emma Watson who made a movie enjoyed by everyone ('Driving Lessons' was mostly panned and 'Wild Target' was more panned, 'The Woman In Black' was really terrible to me while 'December Boys' was panned)

To conclude, 'The Perks of Being A Wallflower' is definitely worth a look and a must-see for any die-hard fan of the Harry Potter series or dramas or romances

A beautiful little well acted movie about teenagers coming of age when you are not part of the in crowd. This is told from a perspective of a freshman in high school who has no friends and prospects of making any are very dim. He is also recovering from the death of his closest and only friend the year before. There's a bit of a traumatic back story that we don't know too much about as the main character (Charles) gets flashbacks throughout the movie and their emotionally devastating meaning is revealed at the end of the movie.
A must see for anyone that went through high school with the added challenges of not having friends and being lonely.
Due to circumstances I personally had to switch high school 3 times and was a quiet person by nature so I can definitely relate although it was some time ago. Watching a movie like this makes it feel like it was yesterday.
An added perc is there's some real good music throughout the movie.

We are all faced with challenges, life is full of them. It is how we choose to face those challenges that ultimately make us who we are. Every now and then, a film gets growing up right. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those film that not only gets it right, but does with integrity.

Charlie is facing his first day of highschool, he doesn’t have any friends and is counting the days until he is done. His life changes when he meets Patrick and Sam, who start showing him the true value of friendship. A long the way Charlie must deal with growing up, the problems he has faced in the past and what lies ahead in his future.

This film is captivating on so many levels, first of all starting with story. Right away, anyone who has ever battled depression or anxiety feels comfortable with Charlie as a protagonist for this story. Charlie is the centre piece of a film that capitalizes on real world issues, from abuse, to tragedy, to depression and guilt. Charlie struggles with many of these, while watching his friends struggle with the rest. All they are looking for is acceptance and to be happy and free. As the film progresses we get glimpses into their past, their mistakes, their plans to make it right and we get a set of characters that is unlike any film in the past. This is the truest coming of age story I have had the pleasure of viewing.

Charlie: So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how could that be.

Sitting here now that the film is done, it completely blows my mind that a film can be that good at getting life right. Usually it is some over exaggeration of how people cope with things, or a misrepresentation of being a teenager, showing the glorious side of life but not the darker side of that time period. Lead by Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a film that needs to be seen by everyone. It tackles so many issues, and it gets them all right.

As the film progresses and things begin to unravel for Charlie, Sam and Patrick you find yourself almost too afraid to watch these real life stories unfold, that perhaps if you wish for a better outcome for these characters it will happen. Very few films make you feel like it’s characters are your own best friends, or that you are in fact the main character of the film taking place on the big screen. During this film, it made me sad to see them struggle, to deal with real world situations, and I wanted to hug the people that have helped me through difficult times because that is how real this film felt.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a beautiful film about friendship, about love and about conquering your fears and learning to live for the moment. If you haven’t already seen this film, which I’m hoping you have, I highly recommend watching it. It will be a tough film to watch at times without getting emotional or feeling your own situations come roaring back, but it is certainly worth the watch on an emotional level, as well as on a technical level for film fans, because the cinematography was wonderful. Instantly one of my favourites and I hope people enjoy it as much as I have.


Charlie: I know who you are, Sam. I know I'm quiet... and, and I should speak more. But if you knew the things that were in my head most of the time, you'd know what I really meant. How, how much we're alike and, and how we've been through things... and you're not small. You're beautiful.

From watching the trailer, I got a slight understanding of the film; guy has no friends when he starts his first year in high school and struggles to make them also, he then finally meets some nice people who befriend him, which to one he falls in love with.

Whilst the base of the story is just as I had predicted, the film as a whole was so much more.

Charlie who is the main character is extremely socially awkward, and you get hints close to the beginning that something in his past had caused him to be this way, eventually you start finding out Charlie has a very deep story in the past which is gradually explained through as the film goes on by flash-backs, you will eventually find out why he is the person he is today, this combined with the journey through his first year with his new friends who also have different personal issues makes this film an emotional roller-coaster.

I don't want to ruin the story for those who haven't seen it, so I'm not going to go into further detail.

On a final note, I do want to point out that the cast for this film was perfect, they were all brilliant at their roles and made the film very believable. I also want to say Emma Watson did an especially good job at portraying her character 'Sam'. As she's widely recognised for playing Hermione from the Harry Potter films, it must have been hard for her to shake off that image that has been imprinted into peoples minds throughout these years, which she has done so brilliantly in this film, this shows how good she is of an actress.

I would highly recommend this film for those who enjoy drama/romantic based films and I certainly will be buying this film when it comes out on DVD/Blu-ray.

First off, I’ve never read the book, never had any interest in doing so. After seeing the trailer, I thought that it looked okay, but I still didn't want to read the book. Even the praises that I read and heard from people weren’t enough to pique my interest but now that I've watched it, and got teary-eyed, it has made itself a place in my must read list.
I thought that it would just be another coming of age story, but what I saw was that it wasn't about being a teenager anymore, it was about becoming a person, Perks of a Wallflower is about living.
The entire cast for this movie was perfect. Absolutely perfect in a way that no one could take any of their characters and give it to someone else, and make it work. They were simply perfect for their roles. It's like the story was made for them to give it life or they were made for story, or something along those lines.

Logan Lerman was brilliant as Charlie. It was as if he was really Charlie, and not an actor. I could barely watch him when he was being really 'shy/awkward' because he got it all right, and made me feel awkward with him. He was genuinely awkward that I couldn’t watch some of his scenes without covering my eyes or ears because I felt so bad for him, as if I was part of the movie.

I can't say the same for Sam though. Of course, Emma Watson, as always, was stunning and made for the role, as I've mentioned earlier, but I noticed her difficulty with her American accent. Her struggle, which was at times apparent to me, made me cringe and wish that I didn't notice it. I understood that maybe she was having a hard time because she wasn’t used to it since it wasn't her natural accent, and I should've just focused on her acting, but her difficulty in speaking with the American twang took my attention away. It's not really bad though, just distracting. I also couldn't help but not believe that her character had a promiscuous past, which again, is not a bad thing. I guess it's because I've never seen her in anything other than as Hermione so I'll probably watch this film again after I've seen her in other movies.

Ezra Miller as Patrick. From his interviews, Ezra might as well have been Patrick in his youth.

The movie itself was a bit boring in the beginning because it had a somewhat slow start, but once the ball rolled, it just kept on getting better and better. I also loved that since I hadn’t read the book, I was completely in the dark about Charlie’s secret, and was surprised when it was revealed.
I give this movie two thumbs up for being funny, awkward (can't get enough of that word for this film), dramatic, and honest.

Let’s face it, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower looked like a traditional American high school feature. It has the approach of a teen film that has been repeated too many times. We have been told enough about the struggles of adolescence and have already had the laughs from experiencing them in awkward situations. In addition, the film marks Emma Watson’s first major role since the end of the Harry Potter series, which is clearly a move to boost box office ratings and did not really support the film from being anything new. Therefore, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower initially had a lot going against it. However, to a huge surprise it shifts every American Pie-like aspect aside and becomes a very serious and psychologically engaging feature that takes the behaviour of teenagers to another level.


Anybody can say that a film adaptation will be a disappointment compared to the original novel due to either lack of story, character development or how it is filmed. However, this is not the case with The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. For starters, Stephen Chbosky pens and directs the film based on his own novel. This indicates only he knows what he is looking for in the film, especially when it has a flexible plot. The story looks very simple but it contains circumstantial issues of death and posttraumatic stress as well as themes of friendship, passivity and surprisingly, homosexuality. Therefore, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower focuses more on emotional drama and less on gross-out humour.


In the leading role is Logan Lerman as protagonist Charlie, who is a struggling teenager after his best friend’s suicide. Following this and aware of Charlie’s sensitivity, he is a bullying victim and, therefore, has a low amount of friends. The character of Charlie and what he goes through literally sums up the meaning of the film’s title. He is emotionally and socially struggling but after meeting Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson), he gradually perks up and blossoms like a flower. Nevertheless, Logan Lerman’s performance is fantastic as he embodied Charlie’s issues through emotions, movements and expressions. For these reasons, he deserves awards and needs to appear in more upcoming projects.


Other young stars in the film include Emma Watson who, like Daniel Radcliffe in The Woman In Black performs in her first major film since Harry Potter. In The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, she portrays young American teenager Sam. This role literally cracks Watson out of her shell as we see her as someone beyond being Hermione Granger where she is a more romantic, sexy and at times, mature young lady. Therefore, Watson’s brilliant performance showed another side to her which proves that she has a future beyond Hogwarts. In addition, after his terrifying but wonderful breakthrough performance in We Need To Talk About Kevin Ezra Miller undergoes a huge transformation in the role of openly homosexual teen Patrick. He is easily the stand-out performer of the trio. Although we see a low amount of humour from Patrick, he is the central character who holds most of the friendships and connections together that we see in the film. This indicates that he, as well as Charlie and Sam, are still trying to maintain the ‘goals’ of adolescence but are exposed as young people with feelings where the audience can emotionally relate to them.


Although The Perks Of Being A Wallflower may appear as an American teen film, it goes completely past that and has resulted in one of the strongest films about adolescence and youth in a very long time. It is still a dark film because of personal issues provided but how it is executed through its themes; the film is also beautiful to watch. Thus, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower replaces the clichéd, gross-out gags with painful realities and progressively serves merely as a pat on the back to young people who suffer from bullying and emotional distress and expresses a message about the importance of friendships, family and love.

I was completely surprised by this movie. I've always wanted this book to be made into a movie ever since I read it the summer before freshman year. Ever since then, the book has always had this lasting impact on me. Most of the things we're so relatable looking back at high school(I'm a freshman in college now). I was so worried that they were going to mess this up but, whatever worries I had subsided way before the end credits rolled. This is one of the best adaptations I've seen in a while and, if you haven't read the book, don't worry. Not only is this a sincere adaptation but, it's also funny, sad, heartfelt, and nostalgic(especially for those who attended high school during this time period).

I don't know where to start since I loved everything about this movie. I will admit, even though I'm giving this a perfect score and even though I loved it, there were two minor things that bothered me. The first, is the subplot involving the sister. It wasn't fully developed, this is because Stephen Chbosky cut out a lot of things involving her which was a little sad. I wish there were more scenes with Charlie and his sister, as well as his brother who is only in the movie for maybe 5 minutes? The other thing that bothered me was that this movie is too short! I know, that's really not a complaint but, I didn't want this movie to end. These two things in no way ruined my enjoyment of this movie or made me love it even less, but I felt like I needed to address them.

The acting in this movie is amazing, and it's so sad that these performances probably won't get recognized by the academy. The two that stick out the most are Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. Sure Emma Watson is great but, this is Lerman's and Miller's movie. Lerman does such a great job at playing Charlie, he is what I pictured him to be when I read the book. He pretty much embodies Charlie. Miller proves that he has range and that We Nee to Talk About Kevin wasn't a hoax or anything. This character is so different from what he played in that movie, it's literally the opposite of what he played and he has no struggle with it. He is the perfect Patrick and I couldn't see anyone playing the part, but him. Same goes for Lerman. The supporting cast does a great job too. The one that sticks out most from that pact is Paul Rudd who plays Mr. Anderson, Charlies English teacher. All my English teachers in high school were great but, I think I speak for everyone when I say, I wish I had an English teacher like Mr. Anderson when I was in high school. Though, all my English teachers that I had did come close..?

Another thing that saddens me is that the soundtrack will probably be ignored by the Academy. This is going to be like last year where Drive's score was ignored, or the year before that when Tron Legacy's score was ignored. Each song was perfect and added that emotional punch to certain scenes. I will most definitely buy the soundtrack as it is probably on of the best soundtracks of this year. It really is a shame that it'll probably be ignored.

When it was first announced that the book was finally going to be made into a movie, I saw that Stephen Chbosky was going to be the writer and director. I was excited and worried about this. Usually with cases like these the author only does the screenplay and someone else directs it. I was not worried so much about the screenplay but, more so of the directing. Stephen Chbosky has screenplay credits under his name, his biggest one being Rent. However, he didn't have experience behind the camera. That's the part that worried me but, I ended up being worried for nothing. The screenplay is great and it deserve to be at least nominated for best adaptive screen play. The dialogue is amazing and he of course includes the line "We are Infinite!" which sent shivers down my spine when Lerman said that. The direction is also nice, it could have been better with maybe someone else but, either way it was still great.

This is a coming of age story and though it may seems generic on the surface, I assure you it's anything but that. There's so much more too it and though the trailers make this movie seem more of a comedy, it's not. There are funny parts but, the last act takes a dark turn so so of you who haven't read the novel might be surprised, especially with the twist.

Like the book, Charlie is my favorite character and he's the most relatable to me. He will probably be relatable to many of you too. The characters are well-developed of course but, sometimes with adaptations characterization can get lost in translation, that is not the case here. The chemistry between Lerman and Watson is effective. They make a nice couple together, kinda wish they were a couple in real life too aha. The interactions between everyone feels natural and unforced, same goes for the way everyone delivers their lines. I could go on and on but, I'll stop here and let you discover things on your own.

Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better adaptation. This is one of those moments where I was actually pleased with the movie and the book's transition to the big screen rather than being disappointed like, lets say, The Hunger Games. I loved everything about this movie, the soundtrack, the performances, etc. By the time the end credits rolled, I'll admit I cried. I cried because, a part of me now misses high school. I cried because this was such a beautiful movie and it's the movie I've been waiting ever since I picked up that book and read that first page. If there's one thing that I learned from the book and this movie, it's that moving on is simple, it' what we leave behind that's hard.

In case anyone is wondering "the tunnel song" is Heroes by David Bowie. A very good movie with strong performances by all three leads.
I was especially impressed by Emma Watson. If she chooses to continue to pursue an acting career she has the potential for a great career.