The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

Jack and I were eager to see this teen coming-of-age movie and liked it very much. About a shy high school freshman who is taken under the wing of some offbeat seniors, it's heavier than the trailer might suggest, but the filmmakers are well up to the task. We're big fans of Ezra Miller (last in these pages in We Need to Talk About Kevin)--the one in the trailer with the football cheer, "Be! Aggressive! Passive! Aggressive!"--and he is wonderful as Patrick, the gay brother of Emma Watson's (after all those Harry Potter movies she was in My Week with Marilyn, with four features coming up, including the 2014 release Noah, ironically delayed due to Hurricane Sandy) Sam. She shows remarkable depth in this role. Though his character Charlie is by design less colorful, Logan Lerman (covered in My One and Only) owns the movie. The adults in the story have little to do for their big credits (Paul Rudd as the English teacher, Dylan McDermott and Kate Walsh as Charlie's parents, Melanie Lynskey as his aunt, and Joan Cusack in a short sequence at the end), even though some of their characters' actions are important.

Director/novelist/screenwriter Stephen Chbosky (pronounced sha-BOS-kee) began his career at age 25 in 1995, directing, writing, and acting in The Four Corners of Nowhere, which was nominated for Grand Jury prize at Sundance. He finished his novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, in 1999, then adapted Jonathan Larson's novel Rent for the big screen and executive produced a TV series Jericho before moving on to this one.

You should know that the movie is supposed to be set around 1990--this was revealed to us in dribs and drabs (e.g. a mix tape on cassette, a big giant cordless phone) but there are a few goofs which make it harder to be sure. There's plenty of great "old" music as well as the original score by Michael Brook (clips can be accessed from this link) and you can listen to excerpts from Brooks' compositions on the amazon page.

Rottentomatoes critics average 86% and audiences 95. Last week it moved from 16 to 15 at the box office and is still playing around town here. We saw it a week and a half ago. Good stuff.