Dedicated to my Dark Lord Emily, mistress of the universe and the Metropolitan Line.
Let’s start off with something simple, since I've been away
from blog-land for over 4 months now. Today, I went to the cinema with Emily.
We went to see a film called ‘The Perks
of Being a Wallflower’. We went to see it because: A) it looked like an
interesting film and we didn't want to go and see ‘ParaNorman’ with Amanda and Kathleen, and B) because it had Emma
Watson in it. Emily and I are both huge Harry Potter fans, so of course we have to see new movies that
the old HP cast are in. I had seen the trailers and knew the basic storyline
for Wallflower, but I haven’t read
the book or heard anyone talking about the book or the movie, so I went in with
a pretty open mind. Maybe I was expecting the usual American coming of age
story, where no matter how bad things might seem, everything turns out peachy
in the end. Maybe I wasn’t. Honestly, I don’t know if I had any preconceptions
at all, but whatever I expected was absolutely blown away by what I actually
saw. If you haven’t seen it, and you absolutely
should, ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’
is a story about a teenaged boy, Charlie, who has had some emotional and
psychological problems in the past, caused by the deaths of 2 people who were
very close to him at different points in his life. When he starts high school,
he has no friends, spends all his time alone reading and his closest friend is
his English teacher. Things progress to the point where he meets step-brother
and -sister Patrick and Sam, two slightly off-the-wall senior students who
befriend him with no questions asked and welcome him into their crazy group of
friends, their “island of misfit toys”. If Charlie had been a ‘normal’ student,
more outgoing, or someone who’d already had friends, he would never have met
the people who turn out to be his best friends in the end, or done all the
things he got to experience; hence, The Perks
of Being a Wallflower.
There are a few reasons why I rate this film so highly,
compared to a lot of other high school/teenage movies. The first thing I
absolutely adore about this movie is its basic message: just because a person
is quiet, it doesn’t mean they don’t have anything to say. I think this film
resonates so deeply with me because I
can relate to Charlie on a level that I just can’t with most other movie protagonists.
Deep down, I think probably most of us can, as Emily pointed out to me on
Facebook a few hours after we’d seen the film:
“Hey just thought of it, we are wallflowers right? Except Amanda of
course. You definitely are.”
As a logical 22 year old, I can look around at people and accept
that most of them probably have moments
where they feel disconnected from the world around them. Occasional times when
they feel as if they are not only on a different page, but reading an entirely
different book to everyone around them. Growing up, especially in secondary
school and college, but even still now in university, I felt as though I just
had a whole lot more of those moments than everyone around me. As a general
rule, I let my heart and emotions rule over my brain, and when I look around I
don’t see the awkward moments people
have, I see that people are having fun, doing things that I’m not, and I feel
as if I am so invisible that life is just passing me by while I am powerless to
stop it. Even now I can sit in a whole lecture room full of people and feel
completely alone because I’m not a part
of the same world as the other students. I have always been introverted and quiet, to
the point that I have a phobia of making phone calls, I hate dancing, making
speeches or anything that draws deliberate attention to me, and I never have
more than a few friends at a time, mostly because I find it hard to attract
them. But once my friends get to know me, they find out that I love laughing
and joking, and I’m not just ‘that shy girl’. I adore crocheting weird
amigurumi animals, baking vegan cakes and discussing the world of Harry Potter
with my Dark Lord (and best friend) Emily. So I love, more than I can describe
with words, that there is a character in a movie who is odd, a wallflower, a
bit different, who doesn’t have to change to make friends and fit in, just like
I didn’t in the end with Amanda, Kathleen and especially Emily. I feel apart
from most other people, and though I occasionally crave being more outgoing,
there are also times that I don’t
want to be like them at all. Why should wallflowers change to fit in, when we
are interesting people in our own right? Similarly Charlie doesn’t stop reading
his English books, doesn’t stop being quiet and quirky and just…different, and
I relate to this character so much more because of it. Even though the movie
was awesome, it was very bittersweet for me, and left me feeling tearful for
about 2 hours after viewing.
Another reason I love this film is because the music is absolutely
awesome. I adore music. I have an iPod, I listen to it most of the day (ask the
Lakes, they’ll verify this), during travel, reading, studying, facebooking,
cooking. You name it, I can do it listening to music. For me, music is linked
strongly to my emotions and to my memories. I have certain songs that I
immediately associate with books I've read, or even certain chapters or
paragraphs in said books. It reminds me of people I've met, places I've been,
things I've done. I think that music really is the soundtrack to life, as
obvious as that might sound. All the books I've read and movies I've seen that
have stayed with me the longest and resonated the deepest, have all either had
excellent soundtracks or have been read while listening to certain music. For
example, I could tell you that when I read ‘Dancing
On Thorns’ by Rebecca Horsfall I listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Stadium Arcadium’ album on repeat. Similarly,
when I read ‘Shopaholic Abroad’ by Sophie
Kinsella, I listened to the song ‘Under Pressure’ by Queen and David Bowie a lot. I don’t know why, sometimes when I’m
reading a book, I just find a song, or an artist that seem to ‘fit’ with the
book and I have to go with it for the duration. ‘In My Father’s Den’, a film I first
watched about 4 or 5 years ago, and have seen multiple times since, has a brilliant
soundtrack heavily influenced by Patti Smith. Like Wallflower ‘In My Father’s
Den’ is a wonderful, desperately sad and bittersweet movie. Also like
Wallflower the soundtrack just…completes it, like the cherry on top of a creamy
cake. The stand out song in Wallflower,
and I think an anthem for wallflowers everywhere in general, is the brilliant ‘Heroes’ by David Bowie. Life is hard, and no one ever makes any bones
about that. But sometimes, we forget that it’s harder for some than for others.
For the socially inept, the ones on the side lines, every day can feel like an
absolute battle, and it takes effort to live. Not just survive, but to actually
get out there and live. It’s hard,
but wallflowers keep going strong, and I think that deserves admiration.
“We can be heroes, forever
and ever…” I think that line says it all really.
Love, Lalita xxx
