The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)                     Logan Lerman and Emma Watson

Rated PG-13 on appeal for mature thematic material, drug and alcohol use, sexual content including references, and a fight - all involving teens.

I did not read this book. I probably will, now that I’ve seen the movie, but I haven’t read it yet.

This was recommended to me by my friends who said “you will recognize the people in this movie. You went to high school with them, too.”  I understand what they meant.  I sat at that table.

There is a lesson that you either learn or that you miss early in high school, and that is that if you have good friends, you don’t need cool friends.  If you have three devoted friends, you don’t need dozens of fair weather friends. And that when you release yourself from the pressure of belonging to any part of the social hierarchy, you drift to your place, and find peace and fun there.

That’s the basic message of this movie. But the spiritual message asks a little bit more of us.

“…do you ever think, that if people knew how crazy you really were that no one would ever talk to you?”

Quick Plot Synopsis

Charlie is a young Freshman who has had some traumatic struggles in his past. We don’t find out what they all are, just that he’s coming out of an incredibly bad year and trying to start over in high school.  He hopes for companionship based on his legendary football-playing brother, and then because of his upper-classmen sister. But there is no help for him there.  He doesn’t find a place to belong until he meets the beautiful but eccentric Sam and her stepbrother Patrick. 

            “Welcome to the island of misfit toys.”

Between this pair, Charlie finds a place to belong, as well as a group of friends who need to be lifted up by him.

            “Thanks for not calling me Nothing, by the way.”

Charlie sees his friends as individually struggling, he sees their pain and their longing and the destructive things they do to themselves.  He observes and he offers help wherever he can, partly to solidify his own position among them, but partly because it’s the only way to stop hurting for them.

            “Teacher: Well, we accept the love we think we deserve.

            Charlie: Can we make them know that they deserve more?

            Teacher: We can try.”

SPOILERS FOLLOW

This movie is not for everyone.  A lot of people I know will watch it and get hung up on the grinding axes.  Some people I know will get distracted by the differences in morality between themselves and the main characters.  So it’s not for everyone.

Charlie and his friends engage in some very risky behavior. They do drugs, they drink, they have destructive relationships, and they all participate in the live Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I just consider to be wildly destructive, although I am told that’s just because I don’t understand how it’s fun. I’m not a prude or anything, I just don’t understand the charm of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  It’s fabulous in its awfulness.  Like a warthog.  Anyway.  Back to the point.

His friends have also suffered, deeply, real damage. The kind of damage that we don’t like to think about. Those of us who were blessed to escape that kind of damage early in life assume that if a person is not curled up in a corner of a padded room rocking themselves and wishing for a sharp object, they must have escaped it, too.  We don’t always realize that the people we know might be putting makeup on some fairly horrific emotional scars. 

We don’t know.  We don’t actually know anything about the beautiful freaks. (Thanks, Nadia). How are we to know?  So… what are we supposed to do with the people that don’t follow the rules, that make choices we don’t understand, that are destructive to themselves even though they can be loving to others? 

We are placed in the path of broken people and given ways to heal them.  We know that God takes care of the broken, that He never stops reaching out in healing, that He gives people what they need in order to keep putting one foot in front of the next, continuing on their paths.

            “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”  Psalm 147:3

But how does He do that, exactly?  How does God reach someone like, say, Patrick, who is bullied on a daily basis for his sexual orientation? Or like Sam, who was abused as an 11 year old girl?  How does God reach out to those people if they are not sitting in a church, in a pew, reading His word and listening to His music? How does He let them know that they are a priceless part of His plan and heirs to his kingdom? We are placed in the path of the people that need help and acceptance , and then we are given what we need to bring love into their lives.

            “…you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but

          with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” 

                                            2 Corinthians 3:3

I think that the message of this movie is to think very carefully before you reject a person who is reaching out in friendship simply because you don’t understand them. The group of misfits opens itself up to allow Charlie in, and as a result, each member of the group benefits from Charlie’s compassion and empathy. Sometimes that takes the form of something truly lovely.  For example, there is a moment when Charlie buys gifts for each of his friends that reflect that he has truly been paying attention to them.

            “You see things and you understand.”

There is a moment when Charlie realizes that Sam, who he holds in such enormous esteem, thinks very little of herself.

            “...you're not small...you're beautiful.”

And then there is the moment when Charlie saves Patrick.  Not just the moment when he jumps blindly into the middle of a cafeteria full of bullies and saves Patrick from being beaten, but later, when he spends day after day with Patrick while he works through his emotional pain.

Charlie becomes the vessel for their healing, and finds some healing for himself in the process.  The cycle of destructive behavior is something that we see everywhere in society and talk about a lot.  But the cycle of healing is more enduring and eternal. And it is what we are called to do.

            “And in this moment, I swear...We are infinite.”

 In the words of someone no one can agree on, "We are the only Bible some people will ever read."