The movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower was a book published on February 1, 1999, then turned into a film that came out on September 21, 2012. The book/film is about a young introverted teenager who is beginning his first year of high school, as he continues through high school he befriends two outgoing seniors.
By: Anex Estrada
The Perks of Being a Wallflower was a pretty big hit both through the film and book. The film had a rotten tomato score of 85% meanwhile the book was liked by 95% of those who read it.
Though the book did pretty well, it is going to get banned sometime this year in schools throughout the U.S. due to the book being sexually explicit and for the use of LGBTQIA+, and for mentioning drug usage.
The difference between the book and the movie is that the book is a diary, where the main character, Charlie, writes about his day and what goes through his mind. The movie however shows what happens and doesn’t mention anything about his diary besides in the beginning.
Charlie is a very introverted person and enters high school with practically no friends, but as he continues on he makes friends with two very outgoing seniors, Patrick, and Sam who are step-siblings.
Since they are seniors, sadly, at the end of the year when all his friends graduate, they will leave him behind since he’s a freshman.
Patrick and Sam teach Charlie about friendship and the meaning of it, they get him out of his comfort zone by taking him to parties and hanging out with them pretty late. His friends weren’t a very good influence on him since they introduced him to different types of drugs.
A significant scene both in the movie and book would be where Charlie is at a party and a character named Brad, Patrick’s boyfriend, offers him a brownie and proceeds to take it because he is starving.
After he eats the brownie he is completely stoned and is talking nonsense and this causes him to open up to Sam while she makes him a milkshake. He tells Sam how his best friend shot himself last winter and was his only friend.
After Sam gets the word to Patrick and they make a toast to Charlie calling him their new friend, Patrick then refers to Charlie as a “Wallflower.”
So, which is better? The book or the movie? In my opinion, the book would be better just because it’s so much more detailed, the film could have included more parts of the book into the movie, and I feel like there were a bunch of good opportunities that could have been included in the film, like important scenes.
Anexahi Estrada
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