[tps_title]5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2012)[/tps_title]
Chbosky directed this adaptation of his own very popular teen book, and watching the end result you realize there was no better man for the job. This is an earnest, nostalgic, and warmhearted coming-of-age tale, and yet it it’s also far darker and more honest than that would lead you to believe; it’s wholly relatable, yet it subverts all of our expectations of what a high school drama should look and act like. There is no cheap sentiment here, no gratuity or raunchiness or hokey lesson-learning, but a textured and complicated study of the succor of young relationships. Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and a spectacularly wry, funny, and sad Ezra Miller make up the hugely winning principal cast, but other players – from Mae Whitman to Nina Dobrev – ensure that the humanism and wit of Perks resonate within all of its searching souls.
See also: The Last Picture Show (1971), Dazed and Confused (1993), Billy Elliot (2000)
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