Perks

The other day, we watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's a sweet movie that takes you back twenty years ago, to when we were in high school and navigating all of the frustrations and disappointments and thrills that age presents. And with the subtexts of depression, abuse, drug use, loneliness, suicide, and homosexuality, it's not always a happy go lucky kind of movie.

The acting, from Logan Lerman to Emma Watson to Ezra Miller, is top-notch. Three outstanding young actors.  The soundtrack is also top notch--The Samples, The Smiths, to XTC and David Bowie--is representative of that era, though it also skews a bit more to the late 1980s. 

The high school is a bit timeless, until you remember today that cell phones and laptops and ipads would be ubiquitous in those halls. And long telephone conversations with a first girlfriend have been replaced by texting. How different is it today, when communication and bullying are so easily found electronically, in forging complicated teenage relationships?

I was very impressed by the movie, and it certainly deserved more awards show recognition. It was outstanding.