Even while reading the book, I sometimes 'drift off' from the storyline because I'm missing the action of spells hitting statues or murderers and spies killing off one another that I get from reading books classified under the 'Fiction' and 'Fantasy' genres. A good friend of mine gave me a copy and recommended it as a 'good-read'. Who are we kidding? What kind of bookworm says a blatant 'No!' to a 'good-read'? So I started scrolling pages after pages (yes, it's an electronic format of the book) and immediately, I'm hooked with this coming-of-age modern classic. And seeing a watered-down version of Charlie in myself added to the plus points. After reading the book, I got a whiff that a movie of 'Perks' was being filmed starring no less than Emma Watson herself as the protagonist's love interest! O, the ecstasy of the inner Watson-fan in me!
Fast forward to this afternoon when I bought the ticket for the screening of the show where I get to see a lot of couples getting out of the cinema house where the film was being played and more couples lining to buy the movie tickets for 'Perks'. I guess I don't see 'Perks' as your regular boy-meets-girl-they-kiss-then-finish kind of love story. For me, it's a love story where you mix in a lot of dysfunctional elements that makes it more realistically representative of love. Maybe that's the same reason why I ended up liking '(500) Days of Summer' for the precise reason that they didn't end up together. Curse me as a guy who never felt love but, hey, that's how I see it. Walang basagan ng trip, dre.
As for the movie itself, as I have said before, it captured the roller coaster ride that my emotions have to go through when I read the book. Thought it's gonna be a happy ending only to notice that you're only halfway the book/movie. Chbosky made it into a movie without disappointing his readers. Touché. Their use of Lerman and Watson to portray Charlie and Sam, respectively, was also a good strategy to capture more audience since the two actors are just 'fresh' from their respective box offices of 'Percy Jackson' and 'Harry Potter' - which are both space-huggers inside my bookworm's heart, I say.
You can't actually put every single detail from the book to the silver screen (although Columbus' way of distorting the first 'Percy' movie leaving fans, including me, to scratch their heads off how the hell it can be continued without the introduction of Kronos; and Howard's rampant desecration of 'Angels and Demons' only [measly] salvageable by the annihilation scene are examples of non-negotiable fuckery, for a better word) and the same goes for 'Perks' even if the author himself directed the movie. The focus on the 'therapeutic' student-teacher relationship between Bill and Charlie has been downgraded, same goes for the minimal involvement of the family which has been portrayed to almost none at all. Although the movie did great in showing the 'acts' that made film-judge-whatever-they're-called rate the movie as R-13 one. Moreover, the focus on the trio also helped in showing the viewers, readers and non-readers alike, the possible effects of past events to the current behaviors of the characters. In the middle of the movie, I kinda bummed myself out when I started associating these factors that led to the development of attitude and behavior of this character. All thanks to the psychology course that I'm currently trying my best to pass. But in the end, it really helped me understand and become more insightful of Charlie's situation.
Overall, the movie was great. Come to think of it, it's also a first for me to watch a movie in a movie house ("Arrr!!! Avast, me hearties!" if you know what I mean) outside of the fantasy category. Good job, Chbosky. You're the man!
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