The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
I really liked the beginning, and there were some genuinely funny moments, especially in Charlie's narration, but it soon runs out and is replaced by a bunch of worn-out cliches. Of course Charlie immediately befriends a group of lovable misfit hipsters and become best friends and fall in love. And the group itself feels so politically correct that I actually imagine the writer/film-makers having a tick list of what to write into the script. Of course Patrick is gay and Mary-Elizabeth a Buddhist/punk/alternative hippie. As for Charlie's family, they're so peripheral that they might as well have been written out entirely, which is annoying because they're supposedly important characters who don't actually do anything. The character with the most development is Charlie's aunt, and she's dead.
I guess my main problem is that the plot ultimately goes nowhere. It feels like the film is so in love with how adorable and quirky its characters are that it forgets to move the plot forward. The film itself is more like bunch of random scenes stuck together rather than a coherent plot. For instance, there's a scene where Sam gives Charlie a pair of glasses when he's on drugs (for no apparent reason whatsoever, I might add), saying they'll protect him because he's scared. But the glasses are never seen or heard from again, and nobody ever mentions this incident in any context, so it has no real relevance and it could have just as well been left out. Everything in this film is revealed in such a weirdly indirect way, and because of this, it ultimately feels insubstantial. I'm not even exaggerating when I say every single important moment happens off-screen. Everything that is actually important is revealed in the most convoluted and oblique way possible. It's an interesting idea to telling a story at first, but it just gets annoying because it feels like the narrator is trying to hide something for no reason, and there's zero emotional investment or impact because the audience isn't there to actually witness these highly important events and it just ends up being alienating.
There is some interesting potential for exploring the characters here, but we're only ever given tiny hints that don't lead to any satisfying conclusion. For instance, Charlie supposedly has some sort of mental condition, but we're never told about it. And we never get the feeling he's actually ill because all he ever does is talk about how he gets bad thoughts, right up to the climax when something does actually happen (but by which point it's too late and we, the audience don't really care about it anymore). He talks about it, but he rarely shows it. We never actually feel that he's suffering. As such, he just comes across as weirdly disconnected instead of being a believable character. The same goes for Sam--she supposedly has some deep dark past but she only references it once, and she doesn't once seem to be troubled by it at any point in the film. Instead, it's replaced by random moments like Sam standing on the back of the truck while it's on the highway listening to music, even though a) I'm pretty sure that's illegal and b) you probably wouldn't even be able to hear the music from the cab anyway. (I have to confess I was half-expecting Sam to get decapitated by a low-hanging sign and/or get pulled over by a police officer...)
I guess the message is supposed to be that you should love people for what they are now, regardless of their past, but you'd think that with the stuff these characters have been through they'd have at least a bit more emotional baggage. This film deals with characters who have been through some very nasty things in the past (which incidentally begs the question of why nearly every apparently everyday family in this film is so horrifically dysfunctional), but they don't ever seem to be seriously impacted by these supposedly traumatic events and they seem to be as casual about it as if they were discussing the weather, so these events have no emotional impact on the audience.
Of course, there's the climax of sorts in which
Spoiler (click to read)
there's what's supposedly the almost-suicide scene (even though we never actually see Charlie trying to kill himself--which is what I mean about "indirect").
Except that it falls flat because there's no noticeable build-up towards it and no indication that this will happen. And, after that,
Spoiler (click to read)
it turns out that Charlie's aunt supposedly abused him, which is what caused his PTSD/condition, except at this point the audience doesn't really care anymore since the climax of the film has already passed, so this extra plot twist feels weak and forced--especially since we've been led to believe that Charlie is feeling guilty about his aunt dying and up til now there's no real indication that there's something else going on (although it does seem disturbing how deeply Charlie is apparently affected by his aunt's death...).
It also annoys me that nearly every main character is preoccupied with romance (seriously, is why is every teenager in Hollywood films obsessed with falling in love? It doesn't ever seem to occur to them that they have more-or-less their entire life before them...).
While there are some good parts in this film, and the acting is on the whole well-done, it's pretty frustrating since it doesn't go anywhere and ultimately ends up feel hollow as a result. It isn't bad per se, but it's far from good. I'm not really sure why everyone seems to think this film is so amazing.
Yikes, that ended up being a really long post, sorry about the wall of text (does anyone actually read these....?).
Last edited by Mr Vertigo (July 10, 2014 (02:04am))
Retribution (3rd place in BRAWL 2015)&Smeagol make the most of being surrounded by single, educated women your own age on a regular basis in college
AquaMorph I dunno women are expensive
This was a big let down from the first film. And Agent Colson's appearance felt like he was there just to say "Hey! Remember me from the last film. Well got to run to the next movie. bye." And Whip Lash felt like he was just there to fill Iron Monger's shoos. But hey! At least Stan Lee was in it. 
Plus they never explained where Stark Tower came from!!!! What's up with that?!?! So I now know no more about Iron Man in the Avengers than when I started the film. 
