The Perks of Being a Wallflower Review

Chbosky directing his own book turns out to be the right call for tone and the wrong one for shape. What he gets exactly right is texture, the specific misery of a cafeteria table, the way a mixtape functions as a confession, the relief of finding two people who will let you be strange in front of them. Logan Lerman plays Charlie almost entirely through what he withholds, which is a difficult thing to sustain and mostly works. Ezra Miller is the engine, playing Patrick as someone performing joy at a volume that keeps everyone from asking questions, and the moment that performance drops is the best acting in the picture.

Emma Watson is uneven with the accent and fine with everything else. The direction is functional rather than expressive, the needle drops occasionally do work the script should have done, and the trauma reveal in the last act arrives compressed and a little clinical after all that patience. But the tunnel scene earns its reputation, and the central claim, that adolescence is survivable if somebody sees you, is delivered without a trace of condescension.