The 10 year anniversary of the film, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, passed on September 24, 2022, but the history of it and the book go farther back. The book in which the movie originated was released on February 1, 1999. The author, Stephen Chbosky, has since helped in numerous projects, such as: being the co-creator, executive producer and writer for Jericho, additionally writing the screenplay for the movie adaptation of “Rent”.
The movie was composed of a star studded cast including, but not limited to, Logan Lerman, Paul Rudd, Emma Waston and Nina Dobrev. They all do an amazing job of bringing the story to life and have proven to be the perfect choices for the characters. This is a beautiful movie that’s one of the best book to movie adaptations I’ve ever seen. This is most likely because the author, Stephen Chbosky, was the one to write the script and direct the movie. It’s a must see for teenagers. It conveys the topics of suicide, growing up and grief in a very real, raw way that is still applicable today.
Unsurprisingly, the movie and book have both received negative opinions and harsh backlash. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” has always been portrayed negatively, so much so that in 2009 it was the one of the most widely banned books, as in the span of 8 years it had been restricted and challenged eleven times. Obviously, it’s not targeted towards younger readers because it does touch on sensitive topics, but in its defense, most kids have heard of these topics and events happening before. Topics such as suicide, sex, abuse, drugs, alcohol and violence. However, most parents who want the book banned refuse to acknowledge that their child might already know of these things, whether they’ve seen them in the media or have witnessed them personally.
Overall, people shouldn't ban books that have the ability to teach people really impactful lessons just because of their knee-jerk reactions to the topics within them. There have been multiple people who have claimed either the movie or book are their favorite for entirely good reasons and the movie has won a multitude of distinguished awards, if that is what people need to recognize how amazing it is.
The quotes have gotten so famous that people quote them without even knowing or watching the movie. Lets see if any of them sound familiar:
“We accept the love we think we deserve”
“You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love”
“Welcome to the island of misfit toys”
“We are infinite”