In some methods, The Perks of Being a Wallflower’s legacy is just like the tunnel that bookends its cinematic rendering: a warmly lit, surprisingly mystical-feeling portal. Nestled within the suburbs of Pittsburgh, the freeway underpass opens the coming-of-age movie, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this week, and serves because the setting for its most ethereal sequence. In its closing moments, Logan Lerman’s Charlie races via that very same tunnel, arms outstretched into the air, musing that someday his adolescence will inevitably fade away, however for now, “We’re infinite.”
A decade later, the cult-classic movie that Stephen Chbosky tailored and directed from his personal 1999 debut novel appears like much less of an previous {photograph} and extra…. “It’s at all times current to me,” he tells Vainness Truthful. “Not every week goes by once I don’t speak to some younger individual or get a letter or a telephone name or electronic mail from any person who was very moved by it.”
And though his world-weary protagonist, Charlie, warns that there “are individuals who neglect what it’s prefer to be 16 after they flip 17,” Chbosky, now 52, just isn’t amongst them. “I’m a kind of that didn’t neglect what it was prefer to be younger,” he says wistfully. “And because the years go on, I discover myself remembering much more.”
He’s, nonetheless, the primary to confess that “changing into any person’s dad” (his first little one was born the identical 12 months as Perks’ launch) has shifted his perspective on the story’s extra distressing subject material, together with suicide and childhood sexual abuse. “I’m grateful that I made the film earlier than I had youngsters,” Chbosky says. “I discover a few of the harder issues that the children undergo way more painful to look at as a mother or father of kids than an adolescent myself. I might’ve pulled some punches, had I made it later, as a result of it might’ve been too troublesome to look at individuals you like undergo troublesome issues.” He provides, “In life we will’t management that, however in artwork we will.”
Undoubtedly past Chbosky’s energy is the alleged misconduct of Ezra Miller, who introduced eccentric highschool pupil Patrick (alongside a submit–Harry Potter Emma Watson as his soulful step sister Sam), from web page to display screen. In 2022, to look at Miller’s efficiency as an outwardly charismatic, inwardly tormented teenager is to witness a star-making flip—Zack Snyder was satisfied to forged Miller in The Flash off of Perks—nevertheless it’s additionally unavoidably sophisticated given the actor’s alleged misdeeds and troubled public picture in recent times.
Chbosky, who spoke about Miller forward of VF’s newest reporting on them, hasn’t had a lot contact with the now 29-year-old since Perks. “I assure you, you personally know much more about Ezra Miller lately than I do,” he insists. However the filmmaker can’t assist however communicate concerning the embattled star utilizing the identical sort of earnest reverence with which he items his characters. “I hope Ezra finds the sunshine that they shined so brightly again after we shot the movie, as a result of the child I met was a remarkably magical individual,” Chbosky says. “And I at all times prefer to consider that that individual is at all times in there and I hope that they will discover the assistance that they want.”
In a wide-ranging dialog, Chbosky talks to VF about how The Perks of Being a Wallflower—an intimate indie with modest field workplace returns regardless of its glowing crucial reception—has loved a popular culture legacy far longer than the fleeting teenage season it chronicled.
Vainness Truthful: What was your largest worry about adapting your individual work?
Stephen Chbosky: I don’t know if I had fears about adapting it, however I did really feel an infinite duty. After I was writing the guide again in New York in my twenties, it was only for me, however as soon as I printed it and heard from all of the younger individuals, I noticed that it had gone far past me and that it meant loads to loads of actually, actually nice individuals. I felt a duty to make a beautiful film for them as a lot as for myself, nevertheless it wasn’t worry. It was extra of a pleasure.
I simply felt like I needed to guard this and help it. Contemplating that I had so many provides through the years to promote the guide to Hollywood and I turned it down time and time and time once more, I simply needed to attend till I used to be prepared with the instruments to inform the story the precise manner. And once I look again on the superb forged, that point once I made the movie, I believe the film gods had been smiling on me and that some issues had been actually well worth the wait.
