Happy Monday and happy “Movie Monday with Kate” day! The second instalment of this blog segment!
As you may know if you’re a friend to my show, I’ve found a new love for movies.. or “cinema” if I want to sound fancy. Naturally, with all this downtime at home and not socializing to stay Omicron free, my Netflix and Crave TV subscriptions have become my best friend… sad? Yup… BUT to find the silver lining, I have turned this new love into an open conversation here on our website so I can breakdown and review the most recent movie I’ve watched. New or old, good or bad, trending or underground, you’ll find a movie review here every other Monday from me. If you’ve seen the movie, let me know if you agree with the review, if not you can use this as a recommendation (unless it’s a bad movie hahah)!
This weekend I finally watched the well known movie “Perks of Being a Wallflower!
Heres how google describes the movie: Socially awkward teen Charlie (Logan Lerman) is a wallflower, always watching life from the sidelines, until two charismatic students become his mentors. Free-spirited Sam (Emma Watson) and her stepbrother Patrick (Ezra Miller) help Charlie discover the joys of friendship, first love, music and more, while a teacher sparks Charlie’s dreams of becoming a writer. However, as his new friends prepare to leave for college, Charlie’s inner sadness threatens to shatter his newfound confidence.
Full transparency, I only chose this movie because of the star studded cast, not because I knew anything about the film. I love Emma Watson, Nina Dobrev, Paul Rudd and Logan Lerman.. so it was a good choice to that end… But did I overall enjoy the movie? Lets talk about it..
Even though this movie was only released in 2012, it for sure had an outdated feel to it. In their defence the time period portrayed in the movie was not current, but even the style of how the movie progressed felt reminiscent of a different time. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I did feel my attention would drift here and there as I waited for something exciting to happen.
The stereotypical yet unrealistic depiction of what it’s like to go to high school was very prevalent throughout the movie. Charlie getting bullied, people getting shoved into the lockers.. you know, just the high school staples in every rom-com high school movie. But his time of being a “wallflower” did not last long, when he was adopted into a small friend group of people a few years ahead of him.
The movie started to have a wholesome feel to it, Charlie started to gain confidence and started developing a sweet little crush on Emma Watsons character “Sam”.
But this movie had an interesting tone switch throughout. It would be a nice moment, then a fight would breakout. He’d be hanging out at home, and then he’d get an odd vision or flashback from childhood that he couldn’t totally understand or see fully.
This of course raised the anticipation for an upcoming plot twist or explanation as to why his family always walked on egg shells around Charlie hoping that his “blackouts” or “bad thoughts” would not come back.
You as the viewer don’t really understand why this is for more than half of the movie.. I remember thinking “theres only 20 minutes left and I still cant predict the ending”. Side not, I can ALWAYS predict the end of any movie and can see what’s coming.. but for the first time in a long time.. I was clueless, which was honestly a nice feeling watching a movie.
As the end neared I was eager to understand why Charlie is the way he is, why his family is they way they are, and why he kept having moments throughout the show where he’d have flashbacks to early childhood memories and then occasionally have small blackouts where he’d forget things and loose time.
Finally, when he admitted his real feelings for Sam and their relationship started to progress, the above questions and wonderings began to become clear.
When Sam and Charlie’s kiss started to heat up and Sam laid her hand on his thigh, Charlie unfortunately did not have a good experience. This caused a blocked memory to surface and a breakdown on Charlie’s behalf to begin. He suddenly recalled what happened in his childhood and all the pieces of the puzzle from the movie came together and became clear.
That is all I’ll write to avoid any major spoilers for those of you who have not watched this movie yet, but be prepared to feel heartbroken for Charlie and what happened to him at an early age.
Overall, the movie was worth the watch and I’m happy I took the time to see a movie I’ve heard many people mention. But was it a favourite of mine? Absolutely not. Will I watch it again? Naa! Would I recommend it? Sure! If you don’t have a better option… But hey, thats just my opinion!
If you have watched this movie, let’s chat on socials @Pulse1077! Do you agree with my review? Why or why not? If you haven’t seen it, will you be checking it out?
Enjoy the rest of your week friends!
-Kate Tattersall