Directed by Stephen Chbosky, who has adapted the screenplay from his own novel, which is set and shot in his Pittsburgh stomping ground, there's no escaping that a personal and intimate tale unfolds in Perks Of Being A Wallflower. This closeness to the material can work in its favour – it's alive with details of its 1991 setting - but Chbosky gets a little lost when trying to do too much.
Charlie (Lerman) is a high school freshman who doesn’t have any friends after his best friend committed suicide. On serious meds for the trauma and suffering blackouts and visions of a loving aunt (Melanie Lynskey) who died in a car accident when he was seven, Charlie's chances of making friends are slim – especially when he becomes close with his English teacher (Rudd). But Charlie falls in with a clique of oddball seniors, including Sam (Watson) and her step-brother Patrick (Miller), who like to perform the Rocky Horror Picture Show on a regular basis. Happy times ensue and help keep Charlie's darker moments at bay but the visions and dark thoughts begin to return…
Lerman, last seen being the dashing confident wildcat D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, turns it down to a mellow squeak for Charlie. He's so straight he accepts a brownie from a stoner on face value. Lerman embodies this naivety and shyness, this Morrissey-like lack of confidence without running home to cry about it in his room (although he does write personal letters to an unknown friend... in his room). He's backed up by a fine Watson (doing a decent high school American) and a manic Miller (another eye-catching turn from the We Need To Talk About Kevin star).
The 90s setting is cool. Not only is it a nostalgia trip for retromaniacs like this reviewer, it also heightens the isolation of school misfits; without the internet to plug yourself into fellow oddities all over the world, Charlie's sense of loneliness and his deep and fast connection to Sam and Patrick is completely believable. But the parade of the era-defining music does throw up one glaring problem. Charlie has himself 'a movie moment' with Sam: he watches her wave her arms in slow motion on the back of Patrick's truck as it glides through a tunnel while a tune plays on the radio. Charlie hangs on the memory but can't locate the tune. What is it? What was that damn tune? None of the hipster music people know either. The tune, laughably, is David Bowie's Heroes. These kids know all about The Smiths and Dinosaur Jr. and The Replacements and don't know this? Hmm. That aside, the soundtrack will appeal to the musos out there.
Perks tends to wander about when it should be wrapping it up, however. In his quest to include everything, the point of the movie tends to get misplaced. While Patrick's quarterback subplot might be unneeded, it is touching. It's the inclusion of his sister, however, and the abuse she suffers at the hands of her weedy pony-tailed boyfriend that's questionable. As is a twist ending that changes the film's entire tone. Lerman's voiceover can be a bit heavy-handed too.
Perks, though, is a top teen movie.