Last night I went to see the new film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is my very favourite book. It’s a good film, well-adapted (with the author as director and writing the screenplay) and there are very few things which I disliked about what was there. I don’t like the way Mary-Elizabeth was portrayed as being a bit of a stereotype, and I think that when they come out of the tunnel the city is the thing to focus on, not the bridge ahead of them. It was nice how they used the actual words from the book for the most important scenes. And I think the places where the story changed were probably Chbosky trying to improve on the strange things in the book, such as Charlie’s visit to Bill’s house.

I didn’t find that the film surpassed the book in any respects, though. The way Charlie writes is, it seems, really important to giving force to what he is trying to say. That’s why I like how they brought that back in for a couple of important scenes, but, there should have been more. I was also disappointed with the lack of stuff about Charlie’s family, both immediate and extended. To me these are some of the richest parts of the book. I guess there just wasn’t room in the film for them.