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As another cinematic “season” draws to a close, I shall put out my opinion on various odds and ends from the film year. And the first award I’m giving out is the Warrior Award, so here’s the context. 

Last year I had screening tickets and went with my brother (who you can read at aworldofgodsandmonsters.wordpress.com) to see Warrior. My expectations were low, I’d never heard of the movie, and it was about MMA, a topic which could barely hold my interest for a conversation, let alone a feature film. But there we were, and the lights go down.

And as it turns out, Warrior is a spectacular film, brilliant performances, a great plot, and full of interesting characters. Which would make it exactly nothing like I expected, and held the honour of being my pleasant surprise of the year. 

And so that’s the Warrior Award – For an excellent film which I expected to be anything but. And that brings us neatly to this year’s winner: 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Written and Directed by Stephen Chbosky 

More background, this time on The Perks of Being a Wallflower. 

Sometime over summer, while we were both waiting to head off to University, my brother purchased Chbosky’s book from the “Modern Masterpieces” section of Waterstones. I was already sceptical, I mean, YA fiction in Modern Masterpieces? Come on. Anyway, he read the book in a few days, and we talked about it on and off over the next couple of days, and he said that the more we talked about it and the more he thought about it, the more he liked the book. And so I, being unable to resist a book it would seem, read it, promptly finishing it in a day or two. 

And…Nothing. I didn’t see much of anything to justify the rave reviews the book had received from my brother, from it’s passionate fandom, from critics. It simply existed, a blank protagonist, weak writing, and the odd great moment or idea. For instance, I will always be a sucker for something where personal development is linked to literature, more of that would have been nice in the book I think. So, yeah. Nothing to see here. 

Skip ahead to the movie, the Internet rejoices, it draws rave reviews from a number of Twitter users and bloggers whose opinions I hold in high esteem, and so, I watch it. 

And this time, something. 

Chbosky, directing the adaptation of his own novel, allows it to burst with an energy that was lacking in the limp prose that the epistolary style of his novel almost cornered him into, and Logan Lerman, in a star making performance, brings Charlie to life in a way I could never have imagined from the character I read. Lerman’s Charlie rounds all the bases of character development, hitting shy, awkward, angst ridden, lovesick, and everything in between out of the park. His character is one that, if you’re of the right age, you’ll look at and see a little of yourself. 

And if you don’t relate to him, one of the supporting cast is sure to have that quality you look for, your anchor in the movie. Emma Watson, in her first major post-Potter role, gives  a strong and convincing performance, and Mae Whitman (her?) is strong too, and I maintain Paul Rudd is just kindness personified as the English teacher we all wish we had. 

But the highlight is Ezra Miller’s Patrick. Miller’s seemingly endless charisma holds your attention whenever he’s on screen, he nails everything the script asks of him, from broad comedy, to Rocky Horror, to a believable and moving inner conflict. Alone he is worth the price of admission. 

Is the movie perfect? No. Some of the dialogue still induces a cringe, but that’s about the worst thing you can say about it.

Strongly performed with a rightfully rewarded supporting turn from Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is bursting with life, either nostalgia for a time long gone, or a feeling that somewhere in this cast is you, the viewer, still trying to find your way to who you are. And that final point is the most important, when I read the book I felt that I was watching the lives of these relatively weak characters unfold, in the film I saw myself in them, I related in a way I hadn’t before, and that made it all come together.