Kasey Ferrell

Staff Writer

    Stephen Chbosky, who wrote the book in 1999, also directed the film in 2012 and did a loving and faithful job with it.  As a movie-going experience, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower hinges on what kind of a person you were in high school and how much that still defines you.  Were you one of those "misfit toys," as one of the characters calls her friends?  A self-identified outsider?  Someone who, pretty smugly, assumed that "the best is yet to come" and had that one defining characteristic that allowed others to neatly compartmentalize you while you just counted the days till it was all over? If this is the case, it is very possible that you will cry during this movie.  Much like in high school itself, there are NO small emotions in this film.  Everything is big, infinite, life altering, and devastating.  Charlie soon befriends Patrick and his half-sister Sam.  Before you know it, mix-tapes are being exchanged, milkshakes are being consumed, zines about punk and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are being made during lunch (hey, it is happening in 1991)!  First kisses and first heartbreaks can’t be far, right? 

    Execution is all that matters.  Chbosky is a good storyteller, employing flashbacks and music in the way that films like these feels almost comforting, and the cast is great in this riveting film.  The main strength of the film; an identifiable feeling of "this could have been me" the lead group of characters provoke in us is awe-worthy.

Still, this particular island of misfit toys is a pretty good one to visit.  Not a perfect place, but then, what place populated by adolescents is?