About the Film

The Movie is a Romanic drama. The reason we can identify this is because of its perky yet dark filming. As the audience we notice when the characters become flirty or act with one another.

Genre

Setting

The film text, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, was set in Pennsylvania, USA. The reason we can see this is because it shows turn off signs for highways. It was placed in the seasons of assumed winter spring and summer because we see them in the snow and Christmas time because of the gift giving and a break for the Christmas holidays. We assume director Chbosky used this scenery because of high school and its schedule. It engages their target audience by having it based around teens and how pressure and silly things can happen. The reason the timing has been placed during the four seasons is because we travel though time and see how school is structured and set.

Charaters

Who:

Logan Lerman who portrays Charlie: Main character, He has some problems in the film, they don’t tell exactly what is wrong but they show how he is placed into a hospital because of his past catching up again and as you can see it involves his Aunt.

Melanie Lynskey (Aunt Helen): She is shown a few times but only in flash backs. He they don’t tell us viewers what she did that involved Charlie but we can take a guess and it’s not good.

Emma Watson (Sam): A wallflower who is a big part of Charlie’s life in the first year of his high school life. Charlie helps Sam in her life, he helps to get her scores up for her SRT’s.

Ezra Miller (Patrick): He is Sam’s step brother and they get along like a couple, which Charlie accidently thought when he first met them. Patrick is gay with a man called Brad.

Johnny Simmons (Brad): He is gay but he doesn’t let anyone else know, although Patrick and his friends know that Patrick and brad meet up sometimes. Brads father disapproves of his son being gay so when he found them together he causes trouble with his son and brad at school.

Why:

These characters were all connected in the film. Connected through friendship and troubles. They are important because it helps build the story. Charlie meets them and then they take him in and help him grow as a person who needs guidance.

Protagonist:

Charlie mainly, Sam and Patrick also. They influence the positive side, comedy but conflict. They build a friendship and build love together.

Antagonist:

Charlie’s mental disorders and health. The reason that Charlie’s mental disorders were the possible antagonists in this film. His disorders and health is what helps create drama needed in the film.

Point of view

The point of view is shown from Logan Lerman’s character. Charlie is the main character and the narrator throughout the movie. We are taken on a journey through the eyes of Charlie, he shows us flash backs of what caused some of his mental issues but he doesn’t tell us exactly. The reason we know this is the opening scene, he motions but does not move his lips. He is writing for a friend, he talks while he writes but not out loud and then he talks about himself.

Opening, Development & Resolution:

The production elements included a non-diegetic start, as we hear music being played at the start it is part of it but it’s not as important. This music sets the scene and as we place ourselves in the movie we start to hear diegetic clicking on a type-writer. This suggests a writer of some sort. The volume of the music and tempo are at a calming yet quite moderate rate as you see when passing bridge rails and signs up above a car you assume because how fast and constant it is moving. The camera angles are mostly shown on Logan while being in his room a third of the time. It used tilt down shots, close ups, medium shots, long shots and extreme long shots. The motif which could be assumed was books, he always had one and it was like he could get lost in them. It was repeated many times. Also when he talked about him “…Getting bad again...” because of his past we assume as the viewers that he did something unimaginable and that’s one of the reasons he ended up in a hospital.

Type-writer, love and mental issues where key parts to the opening, development and resolution. These key things are involved with high school. The type-writer shows that writing means a lot to him so he reads a lot to get lost in at lunch to pass time because no one was kind enough to make friends with him. As the audience, we assume he read books to keep his mind away from becoming bad as well. Love was invited when he met Emma Watson’s character in the film. Although they only got together at the end, she was always affectionate to Logan’s character because of the way he treated her, but when she later on asked him how come he did not ask her out earlier he was surprised because as an audience would assume Logan’s character thought about the age difference between the two of them. His mental issues where something where in the middle of the film (closer to the start) it seemed he did not have a strong disability until the near end of the film. His issues got stronger once losing his 6 months of friendship blew away after one night of not thinking before acting and caused him to act up one day in the cafeteria when Ezra Millers character, Patrick, was being beat up because of the night before between him and Johnny Simmons character, Brad.

Multiple Storylines:

Throughout the film we see other storylines from the other protagonists Sam, Patrick and Charlie’s sister Candace played by Nina Dobrev. Although she may not be a protagonist but she is still shown a few times in Charlie’s life as being someone he looks out for. They are there to help build the story. It gives the story more meaning and helps create a bigger picture towards the end result of the piece. This impacts the audience because it shows real life drama and shows that even these people suffer from outsider issues.