Originally written February 15, 2013

I didn’t think this was possible. I didn’t think a movie adaptation for my favorite book ever, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, would ever be possible. Furthermore, I never thought it possible that it would actually be this good. The book version of The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a coming-of-age novel, and one that’s changed my life. It’s considered by some to be a modern classic and has a growing cult following. It’s a book that’s hard to translate to the screen though, but luckily we have the author of the book himself, Stephen Chbosky, behind the camera for the movie adaptation to bring his novel to life.

The movie starts off with our main character Charlie writing a letter to an unknown recipient. He shares that he’s about to enter into his first year of high school, and gives some insight into his life. Basically, Charlie is a wallflower. He’s extremely introverted and doesn’t have any friends. He likes to watch life from the sidelines. Soon enough, two seniors, Patrick and his beautiful stepsister Sam, take Charlie under their wing and open his world up to new experiences and to try and get him to participate.

I may be a bit biased here because of how much I completely love the book, but I thought this movie adaptation was absolutely perfect. Immediately after watching it I decided it’s one of my new favorite movies. The movie will subjectively be better for a viewer depending on how much they can relate to the content being presented. Perks paints a very great picture of high school, so whether you’re still in high school or have been out of school for a while now, there’s appeal and content to relate to for most people.

I want to congratulate the cast, because a lot of these roles were challenging to take on. While everyone played their part really well, special recognition has to be given to the main cast of Logan Lerman as Charlie, Ezra Miller as Patrick, and Emma Watson as Sam. All three portrayed their characters as perfectly as they possibly could, and it works really well. I’m really glad Stephen Chbosky decided to adapt the material himself, since when it comes down to it no one knows the source material better than he does. He really did his great novel justice by making a movie that far exceeded any expectations I had of it. The only problem is that by the time it was over I was left wanting more because of how much I enjoyed all the parts in the movie. For people that have read the book, there are a number of things that didn’t make it to the movie, but that’s to be expected with any book-to-movie adaptation. What was given to us couldn’t have been done better though.

All in all, The Perks of Being A Wallflower is what I consider to be a perfect movie, and it’s definitely one of the best movies I’ve seen in years. Definitely recommended for fans of the book and people who haven’t read it alike.

5/5