The Perks of Being a Quirky White Dork

Rating: 3/10 (17 April 2013)

Oh Brother. At the beginning of this movie the only thing I knew was that Perks is about a group of quirky white underdogs. Turns out, I didn't need to watch the entire 102 minute long film to find out that I have been right in my assumption the entire time. Perks has this way of throwing together tropes and clichés together in such a way that, if this movie was a pizza and the tropes were toppings then you would send this right back and whoever made it would have been fired (I'm afraid we have to let you go, Chbosky. Hand in your visor and apron by the end of the week).
I will say that Ezra Miller gives probably the best performance of the film. Logan Lerman is too busy slowly taking a soft bowel movement throughout the entire film to try giving a passable performance and Emma Watson is too focused on trying to not sound like a British person doing an offensively poor American accent. Ezra's character Patrick has probably the most interesting storyline out of the whole damn movie. Unfortunately, the small amount of screen time he gets is a testament to how little Chbosky really knows about how to craft a story or write about gay kids.
And then there's Emma. God help her, she's trying, but her American accent fluctuates from "Passable" to "You're not even trying." But I guess when you do eight movies where you have to talk in an over pronounced British accent trying to ditch it would be difficult. The character of Sam itself is rather plain. The character has a bit of a back story of being promiscuous, but we never really go into it. She worries about getting a good SAT score for a bit, but then she does. She finds out her boyfriend was cheating on her, but their break-up scene is mentioned to us and never seen. Yeah you know that rule of Tell don't Show, right? Sam is honestly a dull dull character that could have at least been a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but unfortunately Chbosky couldn't even drum up enough excitement for that.
The supporting cast sure is... there. I won't even spend time on Charlie's family because spoiler: they're all boring. I will say that I feel bad for Mae Whitman. I think she's being typecast as "boring white girl" thanks to Arrested Development. Her character, Mary Elizabeth, is one of Sam & Patrick's friends. She ends up dating Charlie for about, let's say ten minutes. She ends up being a terrible girlfriend! At least, she's terrible enough so that you wouldn't feel bad for her when Charlie kisses Sam right in front of her! I still don't really know the point of Mary Elizabeth, although I did like her hair. Props to the Hair Department for doing an alright job. Other performances that actually stand out are Johnny Simmons as Closeted Gay Kid Brad and Paul Rudd as Cool English Teacher Mr. Anderson. The rest of the cast you could easily swap out for cardboard cut-outs and I would not be the wiser.
I focus on the characters and not the story because there is barely a story to begin with. Loser White Kid has no friends & repressed childhood. He meets quirky white individuals and fits in, deals with his repressed memories, falls in love. The end. Really this movie could have been an hour twenty minutes, tops. However, the story takes so many twists and turns and stretches the line in between Point A and Point B to the point where the line's almost about to snap. There's a large amount of scenes somewhere in the middle that we could easily do without, including any scene where Charlie takes drugs. Whoa! Charlie just took LSD and now he's... shoveling. And he said the tree was a dragon. Crazy stuff. Don't do drugs kids, or ya might shovel snow and then fall asleep! Scary stuff.
I'll wrap this up. "Perks" is a tired, boring mess of a film. The principal cast can barely force the boring lines about punk rock and cult movies out of their mouths while the supporting cast could be replaced by mannequins. The conflict of Charlie's repressed memories is overly dramatic to the point where it feels like I'm watching an After School Special at times.
Really, I can see how most people love this movie. It's about the white teen feeling at his most oppressed: Nobody understands him and they all laugh at him for reading books! Oh No! If it weren't for Cool English Teacher Paul Rudd I don't know what Charlie would have done. I kid you not, at one point one of Charlie's fellow classmates says "Nice Trapper Keeper, f****t." Of course I'd like to blame author Stephen Chbosky for this, since not only did he write the screen play but he also directed the movie. Good to know he got a lot of outside opinions then. Nah, I kid, Stephen Chbosky is great. I mean, who else could have written Rent as blandly as he could have? Well, Ryan Murphy I guess, but that's beside the point!
In conclusion, We accept the Infinite we think we swear in this moment. White People Rule.