There are no good reasons I could give you for why I had not yet seen The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012).  The film is mostly about being a social outcast in high school.  What is interesting about that concept is that those people on the fringes, if they can find each other, do not feel like they are less than accepted.  When you are that age, ultimately that is what it is all about: acceptance.  I know I felt that way when I was young.  I see things differently now that I practice my Faith, which was not the case in my teenage years.  What I did feel was a sense of longing that I did not understand then, but which helps me identify with films like today, with some notable exceptions.  On the whole, though, I am looking forward to talking about this one.

Before Charlie Kelmeckis (Logan Lerman) knew of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, he is about to start his freshman year of high school.  He is writing to an unnamed friend about his expectations for the coming school year, and none of them are positive.  His first day goes as he envisions, with the only person who is friendly to him being Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd), the English teacher.  This is not surprising in a different way in that Charlie has aspirations of being a writer, but that also leads to disapprobation from his classmates.  In short, aside from keeping up with his schoolwork, his only other activity is counting down the days until he graduates.  Life would have continued that way until he meets Patrick (Ezra Miller) at the school football game.  It is clear that, like Charlie, his presence is perfunctory.  It is at this moment that he also meets Sam (Emma Watson).  Though he initially takes Patrick and Sam as boyfriend and girlfriend, he later learns that they are step-siblings.  They form a trio that share a unique perspective on life, but have other experiences in common.  While it is Patrick who first shows Charlie a Christ-like sense of friendship, it is Sam to whom Charlie is most drawn.  We are eventually told that she had been sexually assaulted as a child, the result of her father bringing around business associates, which led to promiscuity early in high school.  Though it is not revealed until towards the end, Charlie had been similarly treated by his Aunt Helen (Melanie Lynskey).  The problem for Charlie is that he has next to no memory of this traumatic event, which has served to make him shy and withdrawn.  It is Patrick and Sam that bring him out of his shell, particularly after the homecoming dance.  At an afterparty, Patrick and Sam’s friend give Charlie a marijuana infused brownie that he does not realize is infused with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).  In Charlie’s stoned stupor, he waxes on number of subjects that meet with their approval, gaining him official admission to being a wallflower.  He had never been a part of a clique before, though it is to Sam that he is most devoted.  At the same time, he discovers that Patrick is homosexual after catching the senior kissing Brad Hayes (Johnny Simmons), who is one of the popular kids on the football team.  Charlie promises to keep the affair a secret, which is something he is good at considering his quiet nature.  On the other hand, his demeanor gets him into trouble.  When he is asked to the next school dance by Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman), one of the wallflowers, he does not refuse.  Despite spending much of the time pining for Sam, Charlie allows himself to be led back to Mary Elizabeth’s place where they make out.  To Mary Elizabeth, this means that they are now dating, but she spends most of the time they are together smothering him with affection.  It does not take too long before he is wanting to break up with her, but he is too nice to do so.  Unfortunately, he signals his true feelings in the most awkward way possible.  At a party at Patrick and Sam’s place, the group engage in that time honored teenage tradition of playing truth or dare.  When it comes round to Patrick’s turn to make a request, he dares Charlie to kiss the prettiest girl in the room.  Instead of turning to Mary Elizabeth, Charlie touches lips with Sam.  Everyone is shocked and Mary Elizabeth is devastated.  Even though Charlie apologizes profusely, he is told by Patrick that some separation is needed.  As such, it is back to him sitting by himself at lunch.  In the intervening time, Brad’s father finds out that his jock son is a homosexual, leading to the athlete being beaten by dad.  At school, Brad tries to tell everyone he had been jumped in a parking lot.  He takes his obfuscation a step further by tripping Patrick in the cafeteria. A fight ensues wherein a couple of Brad’s teammates join in battering Patrick.  Sam tries to stop it, but it is Charlie that finishes it, jumping into the middle of the fracas and saving Patrick.  Once Charlie is through, he realizes he had blacked out during his efforts.  At any rate, it results in the wallflowers accepting him back, and he resumes his particular friendship with Patrick and Sam.  Unfortunately, all Charlie’s friends are seniors, and graduation is weeks away.  Also hanging over these last days is the fact that Sam got into Penn State, a school she had dreamed about and for which Charlie had helped her to get into by studying with her for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).  After senior prom and the diploma ceremony, Charlie is giving Sam a hand with packing.  As they do so, Sam discusses her failed relationship with Craig (Reece Thompson), a college student she had been dating.  Charlie admits the depths of her feelings for her, and they share a passionate kiss.  The next morning, though, he is emotionally wrought to see her go.  Once home, he spirals, blaming himself for Aunt Helen’s death while on the phone with his sister, Candace Kelmeckis (Nina Dobrev).  She immediately has someone call the police and they arrive before he can harm himself.  He had once more blacked out, and he does not snap out of it until he is in the hospital talking to mental health professional Dr. Burton (Joan Cusack).  It is then that he finally realizes the trauma of his childhood.  With some help from his family and friends, he is able to regain some semblance of normalcy and move on with his life.

I hesitate to use any derivation of the word “normal” in talking about The Perks of Being a Wallflower, or for life in general.  It is a relative term that changes throughout our years.  I write it all the same because it fits so well with the plot.  It is something that Charlie does not feel, and he finds this group because they observe the others who might think they have achieved it.  This is all a roundabout way of saying he is an outcast, but even outcasts can have their societies as we see in the movie.  In a sense, this describes the Catholic Church.  Even the most solitary of hermits over the centuries had a set of brothers with whom they sometimes communicated.  There are similar people today, but any needs they cannot provide for themselves are taken care of by a nearby community.  It should also be noted that there have been places and times when the Church as a whole was considered an outsider.  The point is that we all need some form of love, and because we live in a fallen world, we do not always seek out God to provide it.  To this end, there is one of the more interesting cinematic lines on the topic when Charlie makes the claim that we accept the love we think we deserve.  His character embodies this concept.  His past trauma has him blaming himself for the terrible things done to him.  His family also did not know about the abuse, and thus did not care for him as he probably needed.  Thus, when he got to the social minefield that is high school, he presumed that nobody would like him.  Even when he found friends, he was unable to tell them how he truly felt.  This kept him from pursuing Sam, and why he went along with Mary Elizabeth’s advances.  As a practicing Catholic, I would have liked to have seen him explore his Faith more, particularly since he comes from a Catholic family that at least goes to Mass on Christmas and Easter.  That may not sound like much, but I just described the majority of people who call themselves Catholic.  Still, Charlie does find a group of friends that resemble in their own way God’s affection for us, and that cannot be dismissed.

I would also urge you not to dismiss The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  It is not a teenage melodrama, but rather deals with some serious issues that have resonance with all of us.  I could have done without some of the drinking, drug use, and the fanfare for The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).  Yet, the lessons The Perks of Being a Wallflower provides overshadow the questionable material, and it gets a full recommendation.