My favorite quote isn’t “We accept the love we think we deserve”, it’s “You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.” They’re both incredible advice, but the second one always resonated with me more. Hit me like a ton of bricks when I rewatched this movie after a breakup some years ago.
@Chimp Wimp "we accept the love we think we deserve." If u choose to take bad behavior, manipulation or toxicity, knowing its toxic and manipulative, repeatedly, because u think u love them, and its the right think to do, and sticking around is a test of love etc. Then its not their fault, its yours. You dont think you deserve more. You dont believe you deserve to be treated with respect, kindness, courtesy, truth and love. You think you deserve this, the pain, the ache of this is love.. you think you'll turn it around. Things will get better. They will become Jesus. Fact is, they treat you bad, and you give them chances over chances, because THAT IS THE LOVE YOU THINK YOU DESERVE. its not on them. Its not who or shat they are today, its not who they choose to become tomorrow. Its not if they become Jesus. Its what you think you deserve, and that fact that you're ok with it explains a lot about you. To which, his friend replies- "can we let them know they deserve better?" And he says- " we can try."
@CartoonLioness Yeah I really loved the quote and I think it made me think more about my actions. Because I have pretty low self esteem, I’m not sure if I’d realized that at the time I watched the movie, but it made me think about how uncomfortable I sometimes am accepting compliments ect. Maybe that’s because I feel like I don’t deserve that love.
Mine was “I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.” Growing up as an elder sister in an Asian household I was always taught to prioritize my siblings and other family members needs before mine. I had to struggle with alot of things “independently” when my parents should have been there for me. I was praised to be “strong” and had all my pain trivialized. “Someone has it worse out there” “some kids don’t even have anything to eat” “You are the eldest. Don’t act so childish “ I was a child. So when I read that line for the first time, I sobbed, I sobbed my heart out empty.
"victims go after the same relationships to recreate that scenario, but this time they win." Holy shit, that explains so much. I always wondered why I would see my friends get into relationships they knew were bad for them, and even they didn't know. Trying to regain that sense of control and power makes perfect sense.
As someone who was sexually assaulted as a child, this movie means the world to me. No other film has been able to portray the pain and turmoil one endures after being abused. Easily one of my favorite films.
I'm glad there's someone that feels the same way. I've never had a favorite movie because none of them ever related to me, but this movie made me feel less alone and I've never connected with a movie until I watched this.
same this movie has been my favorite since my peer counselor teacher played it in class in the 7th grade and it’s continuously validated me and allowed me to grow through my trauma and understand that i’m not alone
This movie, specifically the scene with the doctor telling his parents what the aunt did, is the thing that made me realize I want to go to into child psychology to help little kids understand what they've been through. I have also experienced sexual abuse from my older brother and it was one of the most difficult things in my life to understand and heal from and I'm still healing
I agree, I want to be a therapist and help children with what they feel no one could understand. I do was sexually assaulted as a very young girl and this movie changed my life.
Hello. I have a friend who is currently experiencing this, they are 15, their brother is an adult and they've been raped. They don't know what to do and neither do I. How did you address this situation?
"You will have people who reject you. You will have people who aren't interested in your company. You will have people who are judgemental of what you are. But you do it long enough and you'll find your people." I wish I'd heard this when I was a kid.
I greatly remember carrying this book with me everywhere like a bible, even after graduating. I related so hard because it was like a journal I wrote myself. Eventually overtime I did find my people, I did overcome and faced my trauma, and healed on my own. The day I stopped carrying it around was the day I felt the weight of my trauma lift off my shoulders. That was my "We Are Infinite" moment.
thanks to this video i opened that book for the first time in like six years. I used to feel so Charlie. Im glad im past it now, but that nostalgia hitted hard.
Same here, and even if now as an adult I've found my people, love, and happiness, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is and always will be my comfort film and book
your comment made me cry💕 this book was my safety net for a long time too, brought it with me everywhere just in case. the day i stopped opening it when i was upset was a moment of growth
The sequence of Charlie's repressed memories of his aunt sexually abusing him was so chilling, complete with jump cuts, the lingering shots of the knife, and Charlie's sister's mounting terror after he asks her "I killed Aunt Helen, didn't I?" Since Helen was abused by someone she trusted, it's horrifying that she repeated the same cycle with Charlie. The poor guy blamed himself for her death for years.
@Tiffany Kim I think he did blame himself even before he remembered the abuse, because there is a scene prior that Helen is talking to him about getting his birthday present, getting into the car and the truck hitting the car.
This happened to my ex with his grandpa. I always thought he was just upset bc his grandpa died in a car crash suddenly when he was a teenager. It was years before I realized his grandpa had been abusing him 😢
@Al the Alligator As mentioned in comments above, it's not a catch-all explanation and won't apply to every abuse victim. But it's true for some. And it's hard to comprehend if you haven't experienced it. The brain is strange and trauma does strange things to it. Sometimes people who've experienced sexual abuse or rape as a child, especially from a family member, will not even register it as abuse unless someone else tells them it is. That's what grooming is. Someone like that could easily go on to live an adult life and abuse others under the impression that they're showing love.
I think it's easy to forget this was a book written in '99 and the movie was directed by the author who didn't have much directing experience but he definitely had a beautiful story to convey that has touched many lives.
“People who are generally good can do terrible sh*t” As someone who was on the receiving end of abuse by someone who was exactly like that, I still struggle with those thoughts about that person. Like Charlie, I have so many good memories of that person, and then there’s the singular memory that just tarnishes all the good. It’s so complicated to reconcile. Thank you for touching on this.
the walking home scene where he “multiplies” into a bunch of charlies made a lot of sense to me because i’ve had lived through a similar experience. walking home from class and having a panic or anxiety attack (not really sure of what it was) and suddenly the way home felt endless. like it took so much effort and it felt like the road would never end and this is kind of portrayed here in my opinion. you see 3 charlies walking as if it was 3 times longer than it actually was. it also mimics how time passes very weirdly in those moments and you can’t tell how far along the road you actually are. we don’t know which charlie we’re supposed to look at because we don’t know how far along he actually is there.
Can we acknowledge how perfect David Bowie's "Heroes" is for this movie? It perfectly encapsulates that feeling, that feeling that you could do anything, at least for one day, and how even if you're not a hero, you're allowed to feel like one every now and then. I know Landslide by Fleetwood Mac was the tunnel song in the book, but as gorgeous as that song is, I don't think it would give me butterflies in this movie quite like "Heroes" does.
I still remember the first time I heard this song. I was coming back from a month long camping trip with my POS father in BC (Didn't know he was a POS yet) when I was 14. We were just outside of Calgary at like 2am and I couldn't sleep because my brother and I were cramped in the backseat of his truck with a bunch of the camping supplies that didn't fit in the box and this song came on the radio. I listened while looking out the window and just being bored. It wasn't like an epiphany moment, the only strong emotion was my feeling that the song slapped, but it stuck with me. I watched Perks when I was like 16, and the song completely took me off guard, I hadn't listened to it since, and there it was, that one song that played on the radio that one time, now in one of the most impactful movies personally I'd ever seen up till then. The song took on a whole new meaning for me, but I think I'll always remember that August night, no matter how mundane it was
I hadnt truly realized I was a victim of s*xual abuse until those last minutes of this movie. I started questioning why it was effecting me so much and why I could see myself so clearly in what happened to Charlie and the way that pain is just shoved down so deeply its hard to even remember its there and that its the cause of so much. It was the first pull from the well and it felt so weirdly carthartic evem though it made cry so hard
When you realize Sam's manic pixie dream girl trope here is really her just trying to navigate and cope through her own trauma; it seems much less of a trope and much more of a real human being portrayed on screen.
@wasteland baby Tropes are supposed to be shorthand for people to recognize similarities. They aren't supposed to be a steel box that locks them into a personality. Use whatever trope the director/writer wishes to, they just need to put in the effort to make every single main character have dimension. Show us why the character is acting this way by the end of the story(or at least heavily hint at it).
i'd argue that *most* proclaimed "MPDG"s are exactly that, a girl trying to navigate her own trauma and issues. the person who first coined the term said he regret it, because all quirky extroverted female characters kept getting put in that box unfairly, even when they were full and rich characters in their own right. sam is flawed, she doesn't exist for charlie, she's insecure, she's not a MPDG - but her behaviour/personality characteristics still has her seen that way because we have a limited view of female characters. we only see so much of her because it's Charlie's story, not because the character herself is one dimensional. Clementine in eternal sunshine & summer in 500 days of summer are both also unfairly called a MPDG for being quirky love interests.
@Riddhi Saha idk where you have been, but normally the blonde white woman (add pink to the mix) sometimes appears in movies as the mean girl or dumb girl. So that counts as a trope.
I just went through a terrible suicidal period after finally telling my mom about my csa and she called me a liar and said therapy is making me believe things that are not true. I got lost in this headspace of “but they had terrible lives” just like Charlie did. Hearing you guys explain how bad people can have humanity really helped me. I feel the positive memories I have with my abusers actually bring up more pain and suffering than the negative memories because they leave me so confused. They make me feel like I can’t trust any form of love, goodness, and positive memories. I wish more people brought awareness to the nuance of abusive people because I truly feel I’ve almost lost my life multiple times because of the pure HELL it is to constantly question whether or not what happened to me was actually abuse. Thank you guys so much for being a light in my life💜
I felt this comment in my bones. Both of the pain if having good memories of your abusers and how it constantly makes you call into question everything including whether the abuse was actually really abuse.
See, I feel Charlie’s psychological struggle of “there are good people…like my aunt.” I always believed that my parents were good people. They guided me through life, raised me, and let me live in their house. That is good, don’t get me wrong, it is. But taking a step back from everything and moving out of my home made me see that I was believing in only their example of what life should be, rather than what it actually was. My mother is a narcissist who believes everything should be done her way only; and my father is, in his words, “a husband before a father”. That is what I had to realize and it hurt when I had to recognize that. It still hurts. Believing in a role model is a double edged sword; knowing there is no perfect human being, while at the same time seeing someone be a good person to those around them is reassuring of moral righteousness in the world. Find moral truth in your own life, but don’t live by another’s example unless it is a healthy one.
I have the head smashing tendency and I've never told anybody about it because it sounds like such a strange, "crazy" thing to do; this is the first time I've heard anybody talk about it openly and explained it so well. Thanks for relieving that stigma a bit, guys.
The "ice cube" idea is good, or hot (not TOO hot, depending on your water heater)/cold water alternating. The "Skills" concept in from DBT (developed for borderline patients, but you do NOT have to have that diagnosis to profit from the skills!) can help find safe, non-harmful ways to get yourself out of panic or flooding. But lots of people bang their heads on things, so don´t feel crazy. Just don´t hurt yourself!
My fiancee hits her head with fists when they are having a panic attack, so you're not alone in this. Holding an ice cube in hand usually helps them by feeling kind of pain, but in a safer way.
I absolutely loved this movie, I really need to read the book. While "we are infinite" may be cheesy it does encapsulate the hope/optimism of our teenage years.
This is a hard episode for me. I dealt with something in the same vein from my dad- not physical, he made me read the CP he wrote when I was 10. There were a lot of other really messed up things he said or did, and for the longest time I just excused it as "stupid stuff." Like he was too much of an idiot to get what a creep he was being. I stopped speaking to him when I was 15, and when I was 23 my therapist caught me mentioning it and it was one of those record scratch moments you get in therapy. When I realized it was all wrong, the feelings came flooding through. I broke NC when I was 27 for a *week* and had to start it up again, because the feelings came flooding back. And anything he said was still steeped in the discomforting betrayal. But also, I've lived all over the US. When I left the hellhole environment of devaluing and being labeled The Family B%7@$ from the age of 10, I did research on where to rebuild. And Pittsburgh is where I now call home. That bridge is nothing. I've had commutes to work that are all river and mountains. It's the most wonderful and gorgeous place in the entire world. Pittsburgh is the home I made.
Brilliant acting from Emma in the scene when Sam confesses to Charlie that her first kiss was from her father's boss when she was eleven. She's obviously still torn up about this, so ensures that Charlie's first kiss will be from someone who genuinely cares about him.
That “wanting to ensure that his first kiss is from someone who loves him” treads a thin line with some pedo’s logic-“I want you to have a better experience than I did.” It’s cute when Emma‘s character does it, because she’s not that much older, and she has a genuine affection for Charlie, but there’s that tinge of it… and here’s me, wishing I didn’t know what I know about the pathology.
Definitely an INFP character. Totally relatable to me in high school. A complete introvert that needed that calm, caring, non judgemental extrovert to invite me into a circle.
This movie made me feel so much less alone. Charlie is so much like how I was at that age. I dealt with PTSD, sexual abuse and the struggles of making friends and making well intentioned mistakes. He saw his aunt how I saw my abuser. I watch this movie to remind myself that there's a story after the story after the story. I watch this movie to help me process my trauma. The only other person I met that had an idea what I went through hurt me deeply, so to see someone, even a character go through that and handle it like I did made me feel like it was okay to have this trauma and it didn't make me a bad person.
"victims of abuse often try and even subconsciously, recreate what they've been through" left me absolutely speechless. winded even. that sentence like opened my eyes to why i have such a hard time moving on from my abuser and unhealthy situations. this channel is my saving grace i swear to god
“In some cases the bridge is burned. I hope you get your shit together and that you become a better person and the people around you in your life will be able to trust you. I can’t. I can’t go there and that is the natural consequences of the choices you made and that’s going to have to be a part of the accountability process” is just so powerful and hit me on such a deep level after a lot of horrible personal experiences I’ve had throughout my life. From 21:30-22:30 was just so perfectly spoken and thank you for taking the time to talk about all of this 💗
I never watched it until I was maybe 22 or 23 & I wish I had so much earlier. My then-girlfriend showed it to me & for her it was very much a foundational movie for her. Watching it with her it was clear how the movie influenced her to becoming the person I know & love
Shame the movie was taken so lightheartedly here. It's such an important film that deals with emotion and trauma in such a real way to connect to so so many people. This movie was a pivotal point in my life as a teen making me realise I wanted to be a therapist to be there for people like Charlie and all of his friends.
The movie just doesn't seem to do the book justice. It doesn't feel like a good movie full of emotion and trauma. Having mental illness myself and growing up with tons of victims of abuse and witnessing the hell they went through and the mental hell they put me through, I felt like the book got it right but the movie didn't. The guys in this video did fine, IMO.
They're older and have stated they don't relate to it, but they do come down and explain what makes the movie so paramount in a more psychological lense. It's just a different way of seeing how important this movie is.
Honestly I do kinda agree with that like it seems like they just don’t relate to it on a personal level so they didn’t talk about that as much but I think that’s what people were expecting to see so
No, not really? They acknowledge that this movie is emotionally intense and very important in how it represents mental trauma, but they're still adults who went past that phase in their life and look at it with a more neutral approach.
Stuff you guys did that killed me: 1. The introduction. 2. The look Jonathan gave Alan while country music's going on. 3. 03:46, "It's Hermione. Craig won't leave her alone". 4. 07:36, Jonathan singing "I kissed a girl and I liked it". Best quote: "We accept the love we think we deserve". I was actually disappointed with "We can try", but then you guys explained that it was a mild correction that we can't make others do anything, but try. Thank you!
When she kisses him and looks at him and says "I love you Charlie" ... it kinda reminds me of "Heal from having your parents before having children so you're children don't have to heal from having YOU as a parent"....I think she's trying to give him what she would've liked to have for her first kiss. And I think that's why she even put aside the fact that she has a boyfriend and even after clarifying it to him,she still wants that for him. "Enough about my problems and failures, let's instead try to prevent someone else from going through that"
My biggest lesson after high school was that in social situations, most people don't care what you say as long as you say something. I was terrified of talking to most people as a teen, then at about 22/23 I started actually started trying and realized everyone's putting in the effort to find common ground
As someone who was born and raised in Pittsburgh, I have always loved this book/film, and love that it was shot locally. So many of these places remind me of my life there! And yes, I have stuck myself out of a sunroof going through the Fort Pitt Tunnels.
This movie spoke to me in terms of panic/anxiety attack. I've never gone through sexual abuse but seeing those scenes of Charlie panicking, gets me because of how real it is. It's almost exactly like how I do them.
It’s very true, I can remember the sensation of sitting in class WANTING to slam my head against my desk. It was so nonsensical but I just knew it would’ve felt amazing. I even tried, but I couldn’t do it as hard as I wanted. It’s so shaking to lose control over yourself and your action like that. Anyways 😎
@Christina Moxon this describes on of my anxiety attacks I had years ago and led me to losing feeling in my all but my head and right arm. I had to get someone to pick me up off the ground and help get the nerves going again. But yeah it felt like a heart attack.
@Amy Ritchie Yes. The first time I had one, I thought I was having a heart attack and going to die. Now I have ways to deal with it. Nothing stops them happening, but you can find ways that work for you to make them easier to get through.
This movie is so important to me. A cousin abused me when I was three or four. So seeing a movie that treat that subject so subtly made me feel seen. I went through a lot of trauma. I was bullied almost my whole scholarship. My father is abusive too. The line "we accept the love we think we deserve" was just a giant slap across my face and I will never forget that.
Coming from a life that was quite mired in abuse, as in it felt like everywhere I turned I could see it, the scene where Charlie speaks of it and how overwhelmed he is to see so much pain spoke to me. Like, the world sucks I know, but sometimes it's like you're almost feeling everyone's share of pain and you wish you could change things or turn it around or make it stop or make it that it never happened but you can't and it's overwhelming I love this book/movie so much
i really really recommend you all to read the book if you liked the film. it’s been my favorite film for a while and i am currently reading the book and… wow. it gives so much depth and meaning to every single bit of the film. it’s also beautifully written (it’s very simple writing but incredibly existencial and sensitive, and i think it’s perfect considering it’s supposed to be written by Charlie himself). couldn’t recommend it more. it’s such a genuine piece. i keep it so close to my heart
I always felt ashamed for causing myself pain during a trigger.. but the way you guys explained it is soo true, that’s exactly how it feels. How do you deal with family who is abusive when you are stuck with no where else to go? To set boundaries with those who aim to oppress another to the point that you almost need permission to breathe.
Wait, are you still feeling "stuck with no where else to go"? If so, where are you? How old are you? There ARE places to go; do you need help finding one?
“How dare you even ask me the question about Joan Cusack movie therapist as if there’s anything Joan Cusack does that isn’t perfection?” Agreed! 😂 In all seriousness, thanks for this episode. Charlie is such an important character and we definitely need more representation on these matters 💖
"We accept the love we think we deserve." That's my favorite line in the movie, and it says so much in that one sentence! Thank you for covering one of my favorite movies. "We are infinite."
@Coochie flip flops Again, it's a movie. There are no parallels to reality. In REALITY we accept the love we can get not what we deserve. Limits to time, opportunity don't afford us the luxury of finding love so we take what we can get and settle since trying to find perfect or even good is unlikely. You have to keep in mind it's a movie, there is no lesson to learn because none of it translates to reality.
@Ian Corral it didnt say "we take the love we think we deserve" it says "we ACCEPT the love we think we deserve" the lady clearly had charlie who loved her and im sure she has had people who loved her. The love she accepted is the one that treats her like crap because she thinks less of herself....THAT is what that quote explains...both statements are still true
@Ian Corral I don’t know what type of life you’ve lived, but if people are your friends there are some things they owe you. First is basic respect of you and your boundaries. Second is that they try to be better if they do something wrong. They can expect the same from you and you can always talk to them about it or throw people out. That took me way more years to learn irl than a 2 hour movie, but that quote resonated with me very much when I first tipped my toe into actual healthy relationships and was terrified I was going to ruin these people, because I didn’t deserve it. But it really was that simple
@Just Sol Because we don’t deserve anything, no one is entitled to anything. We take what we can get, which is why the quote “we accept the love we think we deserve” is false. We take what we can get, life is complicated and not everyone can just afford to keep trying. Advice like that just doesn’t track with reality.
This move, especially as a SA survivor, really hit home in a lot of ways. It was beautifully done and, no matter how many times I watch it, I always ball my eyes out.
Did you know that this story is autobiographical? Charlie = Stephen Chbosky. And yes-Stephen Chbosky is definitely from Pittsburgh. There is no manic pixie girl trope in this story. Sam is real. Emma did a great job, and Logan's performance is devastating and real and infinite.
I saw this movie in theaters when I was going through a dark depression. I don’t know why or how I ended up there, but it ended up saving my life. Seeing Charlie’s journey start with deep rooted anxiety and ending on such a positive note filled me with intense hope. Definitely one of the best coming of age movies of all time.
The first time I saw this movie was a couple months post-graduation from high school. I was the class of 2020. I had lost all my friends in a bad falling out, I was in the last couple months of a sexually abusive relationship. For over a year, I had lost all sense of myself during heavy quarantine and I felt I had no one. There’s still a sense that I missed out on a lot in high school. A lot of my feelings about my teen years can be summed up in the song “When” by dodie, for the sake of keeping this comment shorter. Now, making friends in university has really been a struggle. I’m in a healthier relationship now, and nobody “warned” me (for lack of a better term) that being in a healthy relationship after being in an abusive one would be so hard. There’s so much pressure I put on myself to be perfect and to sacrifice as much of myself as possible to show that I love them, complimented with this absolute dread and panic I feel whenever they give something up for a healthy compromise. I’m working on it and they’re really loving and patient with me. Now instead of mourning the past and what it could’ve been, I’m looking toward the future and how I can love myself, so I can feel the way I deserve to feel: light and hopeful. “My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.”
As a sexual trauma survivor, I loved this film because it's very accurate protrayl of remembering the trauma for the first time. I remembered my trauma right when I started puberty at 12. I used to have dreams but it never showed it clearly until that night, and since then my life took a turn. I became depressed and went to therapy. I justified my abusers actions because they did have a terrible life, and I've come to realize that just like I got help, they could've too. As the result of this trauma, I've made horrible decisions due to the subconsious effects of having this trauma, and I work towards unlearning that everyday. This movie is great at handling these delicate topics without glorifying them. This movie is close to my heart because I felt understood.
I was an adult when it happened and it still took me two years to remember. I’m so sorry to hear all the stories in these comments, you all deserve beautiful lives ❤
i started remembering mine when i was around 14… i started to realize what actually happened, the depth of it and why i was living the way i was linving… even worse than that i was so hurt but i was confused because i didn’t know if i was going crazy, if was just a nightmare or if that really happened, but in my memories i remember telling my parents about it but they never talked about that… and so after years i had the courage to talk to my mom about that and for my surprise she was the one justifying their actions because they were underage and had a terrible life! it was a female cousin not much older than me and i was 5! my parents never did anything and never talked to me about that, they only kept me away from them and never spoke about that again… what they didn’t know was that another person did the same thing around the same time, a female friend also not much older then me, but i didn’t say anything this time because why would i? they had a terrible life as well! when i realized all that i felt so betrayed, scared and alone… i’ve been in therapy for years now but still so hard for me to trust, to open up, to be vulnerable because i feel that i’ll be betrayed again, abandoned again, abused again it’s exhausting, i dealt with depression, panic and today i’m fighting anxiety and a shitty borderline personality disorder and it sucks because all i wanted was to be protected and i wasn’t even able to do this for myself!
I really like what you guys said about how good people are capable of doing horrible things, and vice versa. People are so much more complicated than just good guys and bad guys. That really hit home.
"We accept the love we think we deserve." So that's why I've never had, don't have and never will have a romantic relationship. Not completely sure if it's accurate to describe it as what I think I deserve. But it's what I've chosen at least. And I wager it's better than a dv, financially exploitative, gaslighting or a cheating partner relationship.
Having been a teen who struggled with deep depression and struggled to stay alive your commentary here was so refreshing and healing. Especially the sections of trauma and abuse. I never got a choice of any of my intimacy moments when I was young and was relentlessly shamed because of what was done to me. I ended up hating myself for keep talking to these bad people but was so desperate and felt like I could only be loved if they decided to respect me and see me. Insanely thankful that I am now married to potentially the kindest and most caring person I have ever met and continuing to heal.
Jonathan, your explanation of accountability and what a "bad person" looks like in reality (21:30) is so spot on! I had such an aha moment, thank you much for that! People who have treated us unfairly can be good at heart, their toxic behavior is most likely a result of demons they carry within them. It's very valuable to understand acknowledge that and wish for them to work through their faults because it's probably making them miserable themselves... But it's still justified to draw boundaries if they are not prepared to take accountability for their actions and say "I wish you all the best, but I can't and won't have you in my life since you're making me miserable."
I always felt this was like a slightly darker and serious John Hughes movie. Also it spoke to me deeply. I felt a kinship with Charlie. I wish it was made many years before so it could have helped me understand myself more when I was a teenager. The outsider, the odd one out, the oversensitive one, often seen as weak. I see him as empathic, introvert and a hypersensitive personality with depression, anxiety, ptsd. I was always told to grow tougher skin, don't take it so seriously, but the environment and people around had such an impact. Feeling the pain and struggle felt by others and almost feeling guilty and failure if you are unable to make them feel better, because you know how aweful it is to struggle. You absorb that along with the voices in your head screaming for someone to help you, understand you, and care about you but thinking you don't deserve it. It is a paradox and contradiction that make you war with your self. It took until late 20s early 30s to start to understand that the ability to feel and emphasize is not a weakness. You just have to figure out how to understand and cope with it. Same goes with trauma. That I am still working on. This movie actually made me understand myself a little more and wish the discussion of mental health existed in my home and school as a teenager.
Watching this movie and reading this book in middle school messed me up bc I had a lot of repressed memories at the time that I wasn’t aware I was repressing. This movie was certainly a trigger but I’m grateful for it. I felt less alone bc I thought “if there’s a movie about it I can’t be the only one experiencing this” I also felt like I could maybe one day open up and tell ppl what happened, and it could even be beneficial for me to do so. Now I’m 23 and this movie still sticks with me, kind of as a reminder of when mentally everything changed, I now realize it changed for the better.
This movie had such an impression on me when I first saw it. When I saw the "we accept the love we think we deserve" scene I burst into tears because I was feeling stuck in a toxic, abusive relationship and it just really made my situation hit home and I began to see the relationship for what it was.
This movie means a lot to me. Now that I think about it, this movie is basically my life. I lost my first best friend at 16 to a car accident. I have BPD. I am a writer. And feel exactly like Charlie. Never seen depression shown so well. The part where he's walking back and forth and keeps rubbing his face... exactly what it's like to have a manic moment.
I didn’t fully grasp the whole abuse angle when I saw this originally, I had no frame of reference for that sort of thing. What spoke to me was the self-hatred, Charlie’s self harm, and the feeling that you’re not living your own life and merely looking at everyone else’s.
@excessively fangirling bookworm this was the same for me, I've loved this movie since I was a kid but I didn't understand what had happened to him, though my mom and older sister did, despise me actually going through something similar that I just.. wasn't quite aware of at the time. when I watched it again at an older age I saw it much more clearly and it's only driven me deeper into my infatuation with how well it's portrayed, given that I'm older now and really connect with the last 3rd of the movie.
@cecilia I. Ogwude If you can miss it if you blink, I'm not sure it's that well done. I am a survivor of child abuse myself but not sexual abuse but still, I wish Charlie's backstory, once it was being revealed, had been less implied and instead actually explicitly acknowledged inside of the movie. Or if it's going to only be implied, at least imply it in more scenes than one repressed memory sequence done quickly... imply it in a conversation afterward too or something.
Thank you for this comment. I never understood the full context of the movie when I first watched it and I never understood why people thought it was so much more than I saw it as… it’s just a film you realise more and more things as you open your eyes to them. Anyway, I thought I was the only one who experienced it as you described the first time. Thanks.
@cecilia I. Ogwude I'd say they do talk around it, but it's also tastefully done - I saw this movie as a kid and having no prior contact to the topic of abuse, I didn't really get the meaning. When I got older, it's like a path was unlocked for me and I understood the entire subtext, that I couldn't grasp earlier. In my opinion, the way they approached it, you understand more the wiser/ street-smarter you get and the more your concious mind latches onto subtlety.
i have not been a victim of sexual abuse, but i've been a victim of emotional abuse by my parents, and it is so hard to even realize what you go through until you stop to question what is going on. it was even harder because all around i heard people say how nice people my parents were, so i thought that it was just me who thought they were not. but you guys are right and good people can do terrible stuff. i'm still recovering, little by little ^^
Ive never seen such an accurate portrayal of the devastation and out of body pain and numbness that comes with a panic attack/ breakdown the way this movie does it. Especially because his memories of abuse are cut into it so harshly. Its very realistic and they really did an amazing job of catching that on screen
I remember reading the book and seeing the movie and relating to it so much especially Charlie the black out fights, the banging on the head, the lost track of times, feeling I don’t deserve love, the pain he feels for his family just everything I felt what he felt I was sexually abused by my cousin at 6 years old it went on until I was 10 and I suppressed it so much until I got triggered when I was again sexually abused by first boyfriend at 14 and he was 17 everything came up the memories I reacted very similar to Charlie and I tried to kill myself at 15 my sister found me what happened to me shaped who I was and for a very long time I could cope I found myself cutting a lot because of it reading the book and watching the movie actually helped me recover from it and therapy as well I am doing better now and if this book and movie taught me one thing it taught me that what happened to me wasn’t my fault and it doesn’t define who I am or who I will be in the future.
When I read this book as a young teenager knowing nothing about it and just heavily identifying with the narrater, who wrote this in letterform if I remember correctly, it came as such a shock to me to realize about his own abuse because I had similiar experience and the realization that in this case it was a boy getting abused (kudos for changing it up, not that I want anyone to be abused) and that the abuser had been abused herself threw me in a spiral. I got sent into a mental institution when I was 16 and my therapist (meaning well) focused so much on understanding my abusers (my mom, my grandparents and others) that I instantly became Miss "I have sympathy for everyone" and tried to understand every motivation and trauma they themselves went through that I completely forgot about my own pain . In trying to be better than them I did myself a disservice and never allowed myself to be really angry and realize that I can forgive them but that I don´t owe them forgiveness. I still struggle with that.
When I was in my 20's, I didn't call it "Manic Pixie Dream Girl". One of my besties and I called it. "Being the dancing bear". When in public we were both wild, crazy and loving. We made people laugh and were always doing crazy things and telling crazier stories. When we met...we both stopped. We bonded over how exhausting it was to try to live up to that. We felt like we always had to perform. We had both been abused and didn't want anyone else to feel pain. So we over compensated when around 'people'. And we never let anyone see us in pain. I'm with Alan. I hate the trope. Because we were supporting characters in our own lives and have had to learn how to put ourselves out there as three dimensional main characters. And that's not a story that's ever told. We didn't get a roadmap and couldn't afford therapy. She and I figured it out together. We could have done with a sassy talking dog.
I actually read a(n) (audio)book (not that great, but I liked the character) the main character was like this. It was the opening scene where she was at a boat party hating every minute of it. She threw her hat in the river, told the other guests someone needed to get it, then jumped in herself, and was all "Oops guess I have to go home and change" so she could skip. Everyone else was "That's so (main character's name), when she isn't drinking and gambling dressed like a call girl, she is wonderfully entertaining..."
@Alysha Speed I do have a great community. 🙂 And I don't make space anymore for people who don't like me for me. Not worth it! Agreed that the pedestal blows. 😆
Thank you for covering this movie, even though it really is dependent on how old you were when it came out. For me, I was a 13 year old just discovering my anxiety attacks and trying to come to terms that it was going to be a part of my entire life as I watched all the other kids have fun and make friends seemingly effortlessly. They were free and I was terrified all the time. This movie saved me.
I love the fact that the story plot is set back in the 80's and it's so well made that it feels just like how they made movies back then and it's a 2012 film
I never read this book or saw this movie, but when it was really popular I came across this quote from it. The words carried my heart through a very dark time because it put into words my simultaneous grief and hope: “So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”
I am 50 years old and have NEVER heard the connection you have made with abused people who often times recreate situations in their lives so that they can feel like they have finally won... Wow... My mind is blown. How often do we blame someone who has struggled with their lives, who might be in a cycle of trying to gain victory over repeated, uninvited abuses they have endured. I have to go pick my jaw up off the door. Thank you for this video...
In therapy school we call this "repetition compulsion". If you see somebody who´s not dumb making the SAME dumb mistake again and again: first guess is that they are doing this. Trying to make the past come out right this time.
Cudoos to this film for highlighting that sexual abuse can and does happen to men (more commonly than you think). EDIT: Also, the most ACCURATE portrayal of ptsd/repressed memories and suffering with mental health as a teen that I've seen in a movie. SO MANY films/actors play up ptsd as some BIG dramatic flashback, when in fact its a lot more insidious than that - it's more like an Oak tree, you only see the tree, but it's roots have slowly penetrated the deep earth and tangled with the other roots around it. Years of therapy taught me to slowly untangle and unearth those roots one by one, it's painstakingly, sure, but without those roots, that tree cannot sustain itself, it withers and grows smaller by the day.
I watched this movie when it came out, my brother ended his life that summer, the scene he confesses that his friend died by suicide broke my heart and what Emma Watson's and Ezra Miller's characters did next absolutely destroyed me. It was so kind, so sweet. I related so hard to Charlie in many ways and as pretentious it can be, it's probably my favourite film because I felt seen for the first time.
It’s not pretentious at all to relate to a realistic character and story. It would be pretentious if you said something like “ I feel like I have a lot in common with James Bond”
I have CPTSD. I've had it since I was a kid. It was due to a lot of things I pushed away and would come up due to noises. My mom and dad would call me mental and crazy cause whenever I was forced to face those thoughts, I would hit my head until I received a concussion. I never knew anybody else who did this until I was 15 and watched this movie the first time. I have never felt less alone than seeing Charlie have the same trauma response that I do.
The book version of Perks got me through school. There's a portion in the book about a suicide note that isn't in the film, and it's a damn shame, because it is singlehandedly the best section of the entire thing. If you look up "perks of being a wallflower poem" it'll be the one that starts with the line "Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines". Also a tragedy that they didn't include music from the Swans.
How Charlie feels about his aunt is the same I've felt about someone I've been in a relationship with. I still view them in my head as this great person. Kind, sweet, one of the few people who really accepted me the way I was. This person made me feel like I could actually be accepted. Like I was defective. But...this was also the same person who SA'd me multiple times. And I always struggled with how to feel about that. I also completely forgot about it for months and had this one view of them in my mind. I felt horrible and guilty for leaving and thought that I was being punished for it (I was in a abusive relationship afterwards and thought that was my punishment). That I deserved it. Even now I feel like viewing them as a good person somehow cancels out other things they did (but it really doesn't). I watched this movie as a teen and never fully understood a lot of things in it so I love that you guys walked about it.
This book came out when I was in high school and it was amazing. It was the hot potato book where you never knew the source you just knew who gave it to you who gave it them and who you gave it to in turn. It was an awesome time in a shitty stage of life. I will always thank Stephen for making it. The film didn’t disappoint either 💜
Logan made a beautiful performance in this movie. I read the book before the movie came out and I cried a lot with both things. It's one of my favourite movies ever and it has a special place in my soul.
I read the book in my junior year of high school and mailed a letter to the author because I was so moved by it. During my freshman year at college, my mom forwarded to me a handwritten response from Stephen Chbosky. Such a treat.
I related so much to Charlie. We don't share the same story (only small parts of it) but I was a lot and still am like him. I've always been an empathetic wallflower.
Gotta say this book really changed some of my teenagehood. My best friend and I both read it while going through all the mental health struggles of teens with anxiety and depression. At some points it felt like we could just talk about quotes from the book and it felt like opening up to each other.
I love Emma’s attempt at an American accent. Her British accent still comes through in various moments, but I think it makes her [movie] “accent” more interesting
I think age when it came out makes a huge difference. I am in my early 30s. I think I was in college when I saw it in theaters. Mental health was being discussed at that time, but not in the messy way this movie shows. My friends and I were trying to work through trauma, diagnosis, major family issues, figure out who we want to be as adults, dating, and make it to class on time. I know I found it unlikely I would survive to graduation. There was this heavy pain that felt a little lighter when doing risky things with other people. I tried to be perfect so very few people saw my pain. This movie made me feel less alone and gave me hope. Fast forward to today and I graduated with honors, am happily married, and have a meaningful job in the field I planned. I am so thankful for the people who were there for me during those rough years. Things can get better if you give it time.
@CICADEUS There is hope in Jesus! Repent and put your trust in Him! He loves you! God bless! I meant that it is not good to build a movie on wokeness. Instead of focusing on creating a good movie. I do not care what race anyone has
like, it's not forced diversity to cast a good actor, regardless of race? yall just so used to seeing minority people sidelined and having 30 variations on "sandy blonde blue eyed able bodied white guy" that you find it weird to see them in normal shit?
I love the book! I presented it as a book report freshman year in high school, and I related to it so much. Then my english teacher, however in front of the entire class said “Kind of a girly book.” For the rest of the year I read and presented shitty action books to avoid that kind of embarrassment again. That was one of the oddest roughest encounters I had with toxic masculinity.
I loved this book so so much when I was a teenager (and I still do). It was the first one to ever make me cry. Although I didn't go through as traumatic stuff as the main character did, I was going through severe depression. And I could relate so much to his description of emptiness, not feeling anything and noticing the background starting to shift when you sit there, staring at yourself in the mirror. It just was the perfect description of how I felt at the time and I just couldn't put it into words myself. Unfortunately, I didn't like the movie. It didn't transport the story and the inner turmoil of Charlie, as well as the book, did. If you haven't read the book you don't understand a lot of things that happen in the movie, which ruins it for me.
I watched this movie when I was way too little to understand it, and I related to Charlie even then actually. Now I understand it, and I still unfortunately relate to Charlie a lot and this episode is bringing attention to many things I will be in denial about so thanks for that
I hope you guys consider reacting to Succession. I know, I know, it IS a TV series but the (family) dynamic between the characters is just so Cinema Therapy worthy. Would really be interesting to hear your takes on it!
Your comments about assigning archetypes to different people made me realize that I'd love for you guys to discuss Cabin in the Woods. I felt that was such a great exploration of the horror movie archetypes being shifted around to different people than you'd expect. Every character in the main cast of that movie is set up to be a different trope from classic teen horror movies, but not the trope you'd expect from first glance.
Hey! I've been watching your videos and really loving it! Including this one, The Perks of Being a Wallflower was one of my favorite movies growing up. Now, I just wanted to talk about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, cause as Jonathan says, it gets thrown around a lot. In my understanding, yes, it is everything Alan said it is, usually a girl, that is vivacious and wakes up the - usually a guy - from his boring ass life, but to make it the trope - again, in my understanding - that's the sole reason that character has to be there. These girls don't have lifes, don't have issues besides the ones that will help the guy in some way. They magically appear and disappear whenever they are needed and that's why it's a toxic representation (and yes, 98% of the time they are written by men). But the examples you used got me confused. I believe Clementine from Eternal Sunshine and Summer from 500 Days of Summer not to be Manic Pixie Dream Girls. As Clementine says, she's NOT a concept (sorry to correct you Alan). These two women get fantasized by their men to be perfect and a little crazy and everything different that they needed in their lives, but the movie doesn't show them like that. They have lifes, worries, and character flaws and growth. They don't magically appear and disappear. If being vivacious was the trope it is to say that impulsive vivid girls are not real enough for fiction. Anyway, love you guys, keep doing what you're doing. I just like to read about this particular trope and wanted to share my opinion on it.
I’ve only seen this movie once because I was just so messed up after watching it. I saw it at a time when I was just starting to come to terms with my childhood abuse and trying to get help for my self harm and thoughts of ending things. I related to the main character so strongly and fully broke down watching it. Which hurt but actually helped me open up to a therapist.
This was one of my favorite movies in high school, and it became really important when I began realizing that I was struggling with mental illness. Now that I’m older I’d love to go back and rewatch this movie to see how far I’ve come from that difficult phase of my life
Something I think both the book and the movie handled in a way that I don’t know that I had seen prior is the feeling of detachment. My own personal experience with trauma and untreated PTSD is that , I truly thought I was fine. I didn’t feel real, my memories didn’t feel like my own and that was scary, but I didn’t recognize that as something being off. It’s a cliche - but that feeling of existing but not living was so present in me and I really felt that in Charlie in the movie. It’s safer not feeling things , it’s not a full life , but it’s safe. The memories and feelings coming out him in a way that is both blatant and abstract also really meant a lot to me. Remembering is horrible and terrifying because of the memory, but also because of the confusion that comes with it. I feel like it can be hard to trust what is real and what is not and when you’ve spent so long repressing it and deciding that the problem is you, that you are just fundamentally wrong and that’s why you cant seem to function like those around you. I appreciate this movie and book to this day. No , it’s not the only one of its kind , but there’s something so raw and special and imperfect about it that makes is, at least to me, stand out above the rest. No character is complete healed by the end, nor do you know them 100% - and that’s what healing from trauma is. You can’t wrap it up with a Hollywood ending , and to me, it’s almost demeaning when writers try to do just that.
Haven't watched yet but so excited to see you doing this, as someone with PTSD who first saw this movie after being diagnosed when I was 14 and always commended his performance especially at the end.
I would love to see you talk more about the manic pixie dream girl and how that relates to women with ADHD. As a woman with adhd, my symptoms have been romanticized to fit this trope.
@cattherat Not a movie, the show Life Sentence is really good because the main character is cured of cancer and is figuring out her life without cancer. I’m not explaining it right but it’s good!
Sometimes even the mention of this movie can bring me to tears. It hurts so much to watch but it’s also amazing and has some of the happiest scenes ive ever seen.
I remember watching this for the very first time and how hard it was for me not to burst into tears. I watched this with a group of people who didn’t know what had happened to me. This movie is such a big part of why I was able to open up to people about my past trauma. Why I was able to open up about my mental illness, and the way I saw so much sadness and pain in the world. I had never seen myself on screen before, and then there was Charlie. Charlie let me know that I wasn’t alone and that I wasn’t “weird”. The most beautiful thing about his character to me was showing me that people who have been abused don’t have to become abusers themselves. They can grow to be compassionate and gentle, even though they struggle. Thank you so much for doing this movie
I really love his breakdown scene because it’s the most I’ve ever related to a character with mental health issues. I’ve never really seen it portrayed the same way in any other movie/show/book.
I have chills all over my body, thank you for doing this movie! I cry every time I watch it, and now her I am sobbing at this video.....the understanding that comes with you guys explaining the bts that leads to this movie and characters is just wow. Like yeah I knew, but also HEARING IT just hits different. thank you so much.
On the note of people needing therapy because they've *done* terrible things, that's something that doesn't get talked about much, because we generally think of people who do terrible things as being deserving of suffering. And that might be true, to a degree. I think we need to understand that we are all capable of doing terrible things
@Mateo Castillo You keep quoting "good people" as if that's something I said. It isnt. I said that people who want to be better people should have access to help. You're going off about sexual abuse as if A) it was what I was talking about B) You know anything about me or my history. But sure, I'll bite. In the context of the movie with Charlie feeling conflicted about his aunt, and what Jono says about people not having to be terrible people to do terrible things, I would argue that the aunt, if she had survived and was torn up about what she did, then yes she should be allowed to seek help. Charlie does nit need to forgive her, he doesnt need to keep it a secret, her family does not need to love her, she does not need to be handed a get out if jail free card, but she should be given the option to try and get help. And you know what? I'm not even saying that goes for every predator out there. Again, people are not objective. They dont fit into black and white even though their crimes do. They committed a crime, they should be punished, but depending on the person, their motivations, and their state of mind when the crime was committed then they should be allowed the aid to become better. For Charlie's aunt, I dont even think it was that she was into kids as much as her own circumstances caused something in her to break, which Charlie also comments on in the book. That doesnt mean she didnt commit an act of pedophilia or doesnt deserve to be punished for it. She does. And before you try to say I'm saying she should get off easy or I'm making excuses for her or that other people who commit the same crime deserve to pity, um... no. Again, for the people in the back, you commit a crime, you pay for the crime. But the cycle of abuse is one that all too often makes victims into perpetrators and victims deserve help if they truly are seeking to change their circumstances. And just to hopefully drive my point home because I am not saying abusers are good people, I was abused both verbally and sexually. Know what I did? No, I did not turn the other cheek or argue that he was a damaged individual. He at no point ever wanted to change and tried to go after my brother, so I nearly took a metal bat to his head, knowing that doing so would make me a murderer. I fully accepted that because something in me just broke and I needed something drastic to change. Thankfully I was caught and ended up getting the help I needed to break that cycle where my abuser almost turned me into a killer and ruined my life. Because for about a decade after the fact I thought that I was trash for even considering to sink so low. So dont come at me as if I'm someone who doesnt understand just how awful a crime Charlie's aunt committed. Still, I said what i said. If people want to become better they should have that chance.
@Haven Okay? I just want to make sure we're all on the same page cause the movie talks about child sexual abuse. And personally I think that Jono's words are not very accurate in the context. He has children and I doubt that if someone did something like that to them he would dare to say “what they did to my kids was wrong, but they are still good people”. I think we are pushing the limits and it is absurd. The motivations behind a child sex abuser are of zero importance and what these people need is not therapy, it is rejection and death. And there is no reason for them to be call "good people" in any context. Wtf.
yes! people often do terrible things BECAUSE they have suffered. "Punishment" would just further motivate terrible things. They deserve gentleness now.
27:28- the moment in the movie.❤️ I think this is a movie every college freshman needs to watch. Anyone esp. in college, who hasnt. They'll hv a better understanding of what a healthy relationship really is, and the love they would rather deserve.
In the book, one of my favorite parts is when he drives Candace to have an abortion... it's just a very eye opening part about the book and really shows what kind of person Charlie is
I never got to have a teenage moment with friends feeling infinite. It was constantly emphasized to me that such feelings were immature, arrogant, unrighteous, unworthy and unacceptable.
My favorite quote isn’t “We accept the love we think we deserve”, it’s “You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.” They’re both incredible advice, but the second one always resonated with me more. Hit me like a ton of bricks when I rewatched this movie after a breakup some years ago.
That 2nd line made me cry when I heard it.
@Chimp Wimp "we accept the love we think we deserve." If u choose to take bad behavior, manipulation or toxicity, knowing its toxic and manipulative, repeatedly, because u think u love them, and its the right think to do, and sticking around is a test of love etc. Then its not their fault, its yours. You dont think you deserve more. You dont believe you deserve to be treated with respect, kindness, courtesy, truth and love. You think you deserve this, the pain, the ache of this is love.. you think you'll turn it around. Things will get better. They will become Jesus. Fact is, they treat you bad, and you give them chances over chances, because THAT IS THE LOVE YOU THINK YOU DESERVE. its not on them. Its not who or shat they are today, its not who they choose to become tomorrow. Its not if they become Jesus. Its what you think you deserve, and that fact that you're ok with it explains a lot about you.
To which, his friend replies- "can we let them know they deserve better?"
And he says- " we can try."
@Jordan Levitt I also said good parents (meaning non-abusive in any form) and didn’t just rely on the word stable to get my point across.
@CartoonLioness Yeah I really loved the quote and I think it made me think more about my actions. Because I have pretty low self esteem, I’m not sure if I’d realized that at the time I watched the movie, but it made me think about how uncomfortable I sometimes am accepting compliments ect. Maybe that’s because I feel like I don’t deserve that love.
Mine was
“I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.”
Growing up as an elder sister in an Asian household I was always taught to prioritize my siblings and other family members needs before mine. I had to struggle with alot of things “independently” when my parents should have been there for me. I was praised to be “strong” and had all my pain trivialized. “Someone has it worse out there” “some kids don’t even have anything to eat” “You are the eldest. Don’t act so childish “ I was a child. So when I read that line for the first time, I sobbed, I sobbed my heart out empty.
"victims go after the same relationships to recreate that scenario, but this time they win." Holy shit, that explains so much. I always wondered why I would see my friends get into relationships they knew were bad for them, and even they didn't know. Trying to regain that sense of control and power makes perfect sense.
Yep, i like this whole set up of a movie maker & a therapist evaluating movie story lines and their perspectives. I think its awesome!
As someone who was sexually assaulted as a child, this movie means the world to me. No other film has been able to portray the pain and turmoil one endures after being abused. Easily one of my favorite films.
I showed my mom this movie and she finally understood how I felt about my assault
Couldn't agree with you more. I saw this before I told anyone what had happened to me, and for that it means everything to me x
I'm glad there's someone that feels the same way. I've never had a favorite movie because none of them ever related to me, but this movie made me feel less alone and I've never connected with a movie until I watched this.
You should watch "Speak", it's free on YT. TW for it though
same this movie has been my favorite since my peer counselor teacher played it in class in the 7th grade and it’s continuously validated me and allowed me to grow through my trauma and understand that i’m not alone
This movie, specifically the scene with the doctor telling his parents what the aunt did, is the thing that made me realize I want to go to into child psychology to help little kids understand what they've been through. I have also experienced sexual abuse from my older brother and it was one of the most difficult things in my life to understand and heal from and I'm still healing
I agree, I want to be a therapist and help children with what they feel no one could understand. I do was sexually assaulted as a very young girl and this movie changed my life.
@Alexander Roger tell someone. tell someone you trust or tell someone who can do something about it so it will stop.
Hello. I have a friend who is currently experiencing this, they are 15, their brother is an adult and they've been raped. They don't know what to do and neither do I. How did you address this situation?
Purple Burples thank you💛
"You will have people who reject you. You will have people who aren't interested in your company. You will have people who are judgemental of what you are. But you do it long enough and you'll find your people."
I wish I'd heard this when I was a kid.
I greatly remember carrying this book with me everywhere like a bible, even after graduating. I related so hard because it was like a journal I wrote myself. Eventually overtime I did find my people, I did overcome and faced my trauma, and healed on my own. The day I stopped carrying it around was the day I felt the weight of my trauma lift off my shoulders. That was my "We Are Infinite" moment.
thanks to this video i opened that book for the first time in like six years. I used to feel so Charlie. Im glad im past it now, but that nostalgia hitted hard.
Same here, and even if now as an adult I've found my people, love, and happiness, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is and always will be my comfort film and book
Yep, count me in here, too
I just found my people ❣ I didn't realize others did this too 😭
your comment made me cry💕 this book was my safety net for a long time too, brought it with me everywhere just in case. the day i stopped opening it when i was upset was a moment of growth
The sequence of Charlie's repressed memories of his aunt sexually abusing him was so chilling, complete with jump cuts, the lingering shots of the knife, and Charlie's sister's mounting terror after he asks her "I killed Aunt Helen, didn't I?" Since Helen was abused by someone she trusted, it's horrifying that she repeated the same cycle with Charlie. The poor guy blamed himself for her death for years.
@Tiffany Kim I think he did blame himself even before he remembered the abuse, because there is a scene prior that Helen is talking to him about getting his birthday present, getting into the car and the truck hitting the car.
This happened to my ex with his grandpa. I always thought he was just upset bc his grandpa died in a car crash suddenly when he was a teenager. It was years before I realized his grandpa had been abusing him 😢
I literally can’t with this account everything I like this person does
@Meghan Helmich Fair enough, though I don't think that would apply in Aunt Helen's case
@Al the Alligator As mentioned in comments above, it's not a catch-all explanation and won't apply to every abuse victim. But it's true for some. And it's hard to comprehend if you haven't experienced it. The brain is strange and trauma does strange things to it. Sometimes people who've experienced sexual abuse or rape as a child, especially from a family member, will not even register it as abuse unless someone else tells them it is. That's what grooming is. Someone like that could easily go on to live an adult life and abuse others under the impression that they're showing love.
I think it's easy to forget this was a book written in '99 and the movie was directed by the author who didn't have much directing experience but he definitely had a beautiful story to convey that has touched many lives.
“People who are generally good can do terrible sh*t” As someone who was on the receiving end of abuse by someone who was exactly like that, I still struggle with those thoughts about that person. Like Charlie, I have so many good memories of that person, and then there’s the singular memory that just tarnishes all the good. It’s so complicated to reconcile. Thank you for touching on this.
the walking home scene where he “multiplies” into a bunch of charlies made a lot of sense to me because i’ve had lived through a similar experience. walking home from class and having a panic or anxiety attack (not really sure of what it was) and suddenly the way home felt endless. like it took so much effort and it felt like the road would never end and this is kind of portrayed here in my opinion. you see 3 charlies walking as if it was 3 times longer than it actually was. it also mimics how time passes very weirdly in those moments and you can’t tell how far along the road you actually are. we don’t know which charlie we’re supposed to look at because we don’t know how far along he actually is there.
It reminded me of disassociating 🙃
I definitely think it was meant to portray derealization or depersonalization
Can we acknowledge how perfect David Bowie's "Heroes" is for this movie? It perfectly encapsulates that feeling, that feeling that you could do anything, at least for one day, and how even if you're not a hero, you're allowed to feel like one every now and then. I know Landslide by Fleetwood Mac was the tunnel song in the book, but as gorgeous as that song is, I don't think it would give me butterflies in this movie quite like "Heroes" does.
I still remember the first time I heard this song. I was coming back from a month long camping trip with my POS father in BC (Didn't know he was a POS yet) when I was 14. We were just outside of Calgary at like 2am and I couldn't sleep because my brother and I were cramped in the backseat of his truck with a bunch of the camping supplies that didn't fit in the box and this song came on the radio. I listened while looking out the window and just being bored. It wasn't like an epiphany moment, the only strong emotion was my feeling that the song slapped, but it stuck with me. I watched Perks when I was like 16, and the song completely took me off guard, I hadn't listened to it since, and there it was, that one song that played on the radio that one time, now in one of the most impactful movies personally I'd ever seen up till then. The song took on a whole new meaning for me, but I think I'll always remember that August night, no matter how mundane it was
I hadnt truly realized I was a victim of s*xual abuse until those last minutes of this movie. I started questioning why it was effecting me so much and why I could see myself so clearly in what happened to Charlie and the way that pain is just shoved down so deeply its hard to even remember its there and that its the cause of so much. It was the first pull from the well and it felt so weirdly carthartic evem though it made cry so hard
Ohhhh, THIIIS
Same D:
Same :(
When you realize Sam's manic pixie dream girl trope here is really her just trying to navigate and cope through her own trauma; it seems much less of a trope and much more of a real human being portrayed on screen.
@wasteland baby Great way of putting it, I agree
@wasteland baby Tropes are supposed to be shorthand for people to recognize similarities. They aren't supposed to be a steel box that locks them into a personality.
Use whatever trope the director/writer wishes to, they just need to put in the effort to make every single main character have dimension. Show us why the character is acting this way by the end of the story(or at least heavily hint at it).
i'd argue that *most* proclaimed "MPDG"s are exactly that, a girl trying to navigate her own trauma and issues. the person who first coined the term said he regret it, because all quirky extroverted female characters kept getting put in that box unfairly, even when they were full and rich characters in their own right. sam is flawed, she doesn't exist for charlie, she's insecure, she's not a MPDG - but her behaviour/personality characteristics still has her seen that way because we have a limited view of female characters. we only see so much of her because it's Charlie's story, not because the character herself is one dimensional. Clementine in eternal sunshine & summer in 500 days of summer are both also unfairly called a MPDG for being quirky love interests.
@Cherry Blossom Elle Woods broke that stereotype
@Riddhi Saha idk where you have been, but normally the blonde white woman (add pink to the mix) sometimes appears in movies as the mean girl or dumb girl. So that counts as a trope.
I just went through a terrible suicidal period after finally telling my mom about my csa and she called me a liar and said therapy is making me believe things that are not true. I got lost in this headspace of “but they had terrible lives” just like Charlie did. Hearing you guys explain how bad people can have humanity really helped me. I feel the positive memories I have with my abusers actually bring up more pain and suffering than the negative memories because they leave me so confused. They make me feel like I can’t trust any form of love, goodness, and positive memories. I wish more people brought awareness to the nuance of abusive people because I truly feel I’ve almost lost my life multiple times because of the pure HELL it is to constantly question whether or not what happened to me was actually abuse.
Thank you guys so much for being a light in my life💜
I felt this comment in my bones. Both of the pain if having good memories of your abusers and how it constantly makes you call into question everything including whether the abuse was actually really abuse.
See, I feel Charlie’s psychological struggle of “there are good people…like my aunt.”
I always believed that my parents were good people. They guided me through life, raised me, and let me live in their house. That is good, don’t get me wrong, it is. But taking a step back from everything and moving out of my home made me see that I was believing in only their example of what life should be, rather than what it actually was.
My mother is a narcissist who believes everything should be done her way only; and my father is, in his words, “a husband before a father”. That is what I had to realize and it hurt when I had to recognize that. It still hurts.
Believing in a role model is a double edged sword; knowing there is no perfect human being, while at the same time seeing someone be a good person to those around them is reassuring of moral righteousness in the world. Find moral truth in your own life, but don’t live by another’s example unless it is a healthy one.
I have the head smashing tendency and I've never told anybody about it because it sounds like such a strange, "crazy" thing to do; this is the first time I've heard anybody talk about it openly and explained it so well. Thanks for relieving that stigma a bit, guys.
The "ice cube" idea is good, or hot (not TOO hot, depending on your water heater)/cold water alternating. The "Skills" concept in from DBT (developed for borderline patients, but you do NOT have to have that diagnosis to profit from the skills!) can help find safe, non-harmful ways to get yourself out of panic or flooding. But lots of people bang their heads on things, so don´t feel crazy. Just don´t hurt yourself!
My fiancee hits her head with fists when they are having a panic attack, so you're not alone in this. Holding an ice cube in hand usually helps them by feeling kind of pain, but in a safer way.
I absolutely loved this movie, I really need to read the book. While "we are infinite" may be cheesy it does encapsulate the hope/optimism of our teenage years.
The book is really good
This is a hard episode for me. I dealt with something in the same vein from my dad- not physical, he made me read the CP he wrote when I was 10. There were a lot of other really messed up things he said or did, and for the longest time I just excused it as "stupid stuff." Like he was too much of an idiot to get what a creep he was being. I stopped speaking to him when I was 15, and when I was 23 my therapist caught me mentioning it and it was one of those record scratch moments you get in therapy. When I realized it was all wrong, the feelings came flooding through. I broke NC when I was 27 for a *week* and had to start it up again, because the feelings came flooding back. And anything he said was still steeped in the discomforting betrayal.
But also, I've lived all over the US. When I left the hellhole environment of devaluing and being labeled The Family B%7@$ from the age of 10, I did research on where to rebuild. And Pittsburgh is where I now call home. That bridge is nothing. I've had commutes to work that are all river and mountains. It's the most wonderful and gorgeous place in the entire world. Pittsburgh is the home I made.
I am sorry this happened to you. And happy that you managed to pull through.
Brilliant acting from Emma in the scene when Sam confesses to Charlie that her first kiss was from her father's boss when she was eleven. She's obviously still torn up about this, so ensures that Charlie's first kiss will be from someone who genuinely cares about him.
That “wanting to ensure that his first kiss is from someone who loves him” treads a thin line with some pedo’s logic-“I want you to have a better experience than I did.”
It’s cute when Emma‘s character does it, because she’s not that much older, and she has a genuine affection for Charlie, but there’s that tinge of it… and here’s me, wishing I didn’t know what I know about the pathology.
Charlie asking if he was her first boyfriend always gets me
So that's what her abuse was. I get it now.
Definitely an INFP character. Totally relatable to me in high school. A complete introvert that needed that calm, caring, non judgemental extrovert to invite me into a circle.
This movie made me feel so much less alone. Charlie is so much like how I was at that age.
I dealt with PTSD, sexual abuse and the struggles of making friends and making well intentioned mistakes.
He saw his aunt how I saw my abuser.
I watch this movie to remind myself that there's a story after the story after the story.
I watch this movie to help me process my trauma.
The only other person I met that had an idea what I went through hurt me deeply, so to see someone, even a character go through that and handle it like I did made me feel like it was okay to have this trauma and it didn't make me a bad person.
“we need more bland black women” - Alan Seawright
Has me DEAD
💀
"victims of abuse often try and even subconsciously, recreate what they've been through" left me absolutely speechless. winded even. that sentence like opened my eyes to why i have such a hard time moving on from my abuser and unhealthy situations. this channel is my saving grace i swear to god
“In some cases the bridge is burned. I hope you get your shit together and that you become a better person and the people around you in your life will be able to trust you. I can’t. I can’t go there and that is the natural consequences of the choices you made and that’s going to have to be a part of the accountability process” is just so powerful and hit me on such a deep level after a lot of horrible personal experiences I’ve had throughout my life. From 21:30-22:30 was just so perfectly spoken and thank you for taking the time to talk about all of this 💗
Never clicked so fast. This movie, this book, changed my whole life. I never felt so seen by a piece of media. Thanks for reviewing this one, guys.
Same...
This. 100%
Same here ❤️
@Alina Scaueru Same here
I never watched it until I was maybe 22 or 23 & I wish I had so much earlier. My then-girlfriend showed it to me & for her it was very much a foundational movie for her. Watching it with her it was clear how the movie influenced her to becoming the person I know & love
Shame the movie was taken so lightheartedly here. It's such an important film that deals with emotion and trauma in such a real way to connect to so so many people. This movie was a pivotal point in my life as a teen making me realise I wanted to be a therapist to be there for people like Charlie and all of his friends.
The movie just doesn't seem to do the book justice. It doesn't feel like a good movie full of emotion and trauma. Having mental illness myself and growing up with tons of victims of abuse and witnessing the hell they went through and the mental hell they put me through, I felt like the book got it right but the movie didn't. The guys in this video did fine, IMO.
They're older and have stated they don't relate to it, but they do come down and explain what makes the movie so paramount in a more psychological lense. It's just a different way of seeing how important this movie is.
Honestly I do kinda agree with that like it seems like they just don’t relate to it on a personal level so they didn’t talk about that as much but I think that’s what people were expecting to see so
No, not really? They acknowledge that this movie is emotionally intense and very important in how it represents mental trauma, but they're still adults who went past that phase in their life and look at it with a more neutral approach.
Stuff you guys did that killed me:
1. The introduction.
2. The look Jonathan gave Alan while country music's going on.
3. 03:46, "It's Hermione. Craig won't leave her alone".
4. 07:36, Jonathan singing "I kissed a girl and I liked it".
Best quote: "We accept the love we think we deserve". I was actually disappointed with "We can try", but then you guys explained that it was a mild correction that we can't make others do anything, but try. Thank you!
When she kisses him and looks at him and says "I love you Charlie" ... it kinda reminds me of "Heal from having your parents before having children so you're children don't have to heal from having YOU as a parent"....I think she's trying to give him what she would've liked to have for her first kiss. And I think that's why she even put aside the fact that she has a boyfriend and even after clarifying it to him,she still wants that for him. "Enough about my problems and failures, let's instead try to prevent someone else from going through that"
My biggest lesson after high school was that in social situations, most people don't care what you say as long as you say something. I was terrified of talking to most people as a teen, then at about 22/23 I started actually started trying and realized everyone's putting in the effort to find common ground
As someone who was born and raised in Pittsburgh, I have always loved this book/film, and love that it was shot locally. So many of these places remind me of my life there! And yes, I have stuck myself out of a sunroof going through the Fort Pitt Tunnels.
Is it as nice as as Jono and Alan said?
This movie spoke to me in terms of panic/anxiety attack. I've never gone through sexual abuse but seeing those scenes of Charlie panicking, gets me because of how real it is. It's almost exactly like how I do them.
Omg yes! And all the little things rushing through your head and everything bad flood your thoughts like..ugh.
It’s very true, I can remember the sensation of sitting in class WANTING to slam my head against my desk. It was so nonsensical but I just knew it would’ve felt amazing. I even tried, but I couldn’t do it as hard as I wanted. It’s so shaking to lose control over yourself and your action like that. Anyways 😎
Exactly.
@Christina Moxon this describes on of my anxiety attacks I had years ago and led me to losing feeling in my all but my head and right arm. I had to get someone to pick me up off the ground and help get the nerves going again. But yeah it felt like a heart attack.
@Amy Ritchie Yes. The first time I had one, I thought I was having a heart attack and going to die. Now I have ways to deal with it. Nothing stops them happening, but you can find ways that work for you to make them easier to get through.
This movie is so important to me. A cousin abused me when I was three or four. So seeing a movie that treat that subject so subtly made me feel seen. I went through a lot of trauma. I was bullied almost my whole scholarship. My father is abusive too. The line "we accept the love we think we deserve" was just a giant slap across my face and I will never forget that.
Coming from a life that was quite mired in abuse, as in it felt like everywhere I turned I could see it, the scene where Charlie speaks of it and how overwhelmed he is to see so much pain spoke to me. Like, the world sucks I know, but sometimes it's like you're almost feeling everyone's share of pain and you wish you could change things or turn it around or make it stop or make it that it never happened but you can't and it's overwhelming
I love this book/movie so much
i really really recommend you all to read the book if you liked the film. it’s been my favorite film for a while and i am currently reading the book and… wow. it gives so much depth and meaning to every single bit of the film. it’s also beautifully written (it’s very simple writing but incredibly existencial and sensitive, and i think it’s perfect considering it’s supposed to be written by Charlie himself). couldn’t recommend it more. it’s such a genuine piece. i keep it so close to my heart
The book is so much better than the movie. I read it first and loved it and just didn't feel like the movie did it justice.
I always felt ashamed for causing myself pain during a trigger.. but the way you guys explained it is soo true, that’s exactly how it feels. How do you deal with family who is abusive when you are stuck with no where else to go? To set boundaries with those who aim to oppress another to the point that you almost need permission to breathe.
Wait, are you still feeling "stuck with no where else to go"?
If so, where are you? How old are you? There ARE places to go; do you need help finding one?
“How dare you even ask me the question about Joan Cusack movie therapist as if there’s anything Joan Cusack does that isn’t perfection?” Agreed! 😂 In all seriousness, thanks for this episode. Charlie is such an important character and we definitely need more representation on these matters 💖
"We accept the love we think we deserve." That's my favorite line in the movie, and it says so much in that one sentence! Thank you for covering one of my favorite movies.
"We are infinite."
@Coochie flip flops Again, it's a movie. There are no parallels to reality. In REALITY we accept the love we can get not what we deserve. Limits to time, opportunity don't afford us the luxury of finding love so we take what we can get and settle since trying to find perfect or even good is unlikely.
You have to keep in mind it's a movie, there is no lesson to learn because none of it translates to reality.
@Ian Corral it didnt say "we take the love we think we deserve" it says "we ACCEPT the love we think we deserve" the lady clearly had charlie who loved her and im sure she has had people who loved her. The love she accepted is the one that treats her like crap because she thinks less of herself....THAT is what that quote explains...both statements are still true
@Ian Corral I don’t know what type of life you’ve lived, but if people are your friends there are some things they owe you. First is basic respect of you and your boundaries. Second is that they try to be better if they do something wrong. They can expect the same from you and you can always talk to them about it or throw people out.
That took me way more years to learn irl than a 2 hour movie, but that quote resonated with me very much when I first tipped my toe into actual healthy relationships and was terrified I was going to ruin these people, because I didn’t deserve it. But it really was that simple
@Just Sol Because we don’t deserve anything, no one is entitled to anything. We take what we can get, which is why the quote “we accept the love we think we deserve” is false. We take what we can get, life is complicated and not everyone can just afford to keep trying.
Advice like that just doesn’t track with reality.
@Ian Corral eh, okay. You must be living a pretty swell life if you never thought that you only deserve a certain amount of love in your life.
I love this KZclip channel so much. I love psychology. I love movies. I love humor. This is so perfect
This move, especially as a SA survivor, really hit home in a lot of ways. It was beautifully done and, no matter how many times I watch it, I always ball my eyes out.
Did you know that this story is autobiographical? Charlie = Stephen Chbosky. And yes-Stephen Chbosky is definitely from Pittsburgh. There is no manic pixie girl trope in this story. Sam is real. Emma did a great job, and Logan's performance is devastating and real and infinite.
I saw this movie in theaters when I was going through a dark depression. I don’t know why or how I ended up there, but it ended up saving my life. Seeing Charlie’s journey start with deep rooted anxiety and ending on such a positive note filled me with intense hope. Definitely one of the best coming of age movies of all time.
The first time I saw this movie was a couple months post-graduation from high school. I was the class of 2020. I had lost all my friends in a bad falling out, I was in the last couple months of a sexually abusive relationship. For over a year, I had lost all sense of myself during heavy quarantine and I felt I had no one. There’s still a sense that I missed out on a lot in high school. A lot of my feelings about my teen years can be summed up in the song “When” by dodie, for the sake of keeping this comment shorter. Now, making friends in university has really been a struggle. I’m in a healthier relationship now, and nobody “warned” me (for lack of a better term) that being in a healthy relationship after being in an abusive one would be so hard. There’s so much pressure I put on myself to be perfect and to sacrifice as much of myself as possible to show that I love them, complimented with this absolute dread and panic I feel whenever they give something up for a healthy compromise. I’m working on it and they’re really loving and patient with me. Now instead of mourning the past and what it could’ve been, I’m looking toward the future and how I can love myself, so I can feel the way I deserve to feel: light and hopeful. “My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.”
As a sexual trauma survivor, I loved this film because it's very accurate protrayl of remembering the trauma for the first time. I remembered my trauma right when I started puberty at 12. I used to have dreams but it never showed it clearly until that night, and since then my life took a turn. I became depressed and went to therapy. I justified my abusers actions because they did have a terrible life, and I've come to realize that just like I got help, they could've too. As the result of this trauma, I've made horrible decisions due to the subconsious effects of having this trauma, and I work towards unlearning that everyday.
This movie is great at handling these delicate topics without glorifying them. This movie is close to my heart because I felt understood.
U are completely right. It was the same for me when I remembered my trauma
I was an adult when it happened and it still took me two years to remember. I’m so sorry to hear all the stories in these comments, you all deserve beautiful lives ❤
@Kyra Proulx i feel you so bad, my story was similar and i’m so sorry…
i started remembering mine when i was around 14… i started to realize what actually happened, the depth of it and why i was living the way i was linving… even worse than that i was so hurt but i was confused because i didn’t know if i was going crazy, if was just a nightmare or if that really happened, but in my memories i remember telling my parents about it but they never talked about that… and so after years i had the courage to talk to my mom about that and for my surprise she was the one justifying their actions because they were underage and had a terrible life! it was a female cousin not much older than me and i was 5! my parents never did anything and never talked to me about that, they only kept me away from them and never spoke about that again… what they didn’t know was that another person did the same thing around the same time, a female friend also not much older then me, but i didn’t say anything this time because why would i? they had a terrible life as well! when i realized all that i felt so betrayed, scared and alone… i’ve been in therapy for years now but still so hard for me to trust, to open up, to be vulnerable because i feel that i’ll be betrayed again, abandoned again, abused again it’s exhausting, i dealt with depression, panic and today i’m fighting anxiety and a shitty borderline personality disorder and it sucks because all i wanted was to be protected and i wasn’t even able to do this for myself!
This was beautifully said.
I hope everyone reading this has a great day, my little super stars. ❤️
I really like what you guys said about how good people are capable of doing horrible things, and vice versa. People are so much more complicated than just good guys and bad guys. That really hit home.
As a survivor of child abuse, this hit home. Thank you so much for the care you put into this movie and this topic♥️
"We accept the love we think we deserve." So that's why I've never had, don't have and never will have a romantic relationship. Not completely sure if it's accurate to describe it as what I think I deserve. But it's what I've chosen at least. And I wager it's better than a dv, financially exploitative, gaslighting or a cheating partner relationship.
Having been a teen who struggled with deep depression and struggled to stay alive your commentary here was so refreshing and healing. Especially the sections of trauma and abuse. I never got a choice of any of my intimacy moments when I was young and was relentlessly shamed because of what was done to me. I ended up hating myself for keep talking to these bad people but was so desperate and felt like I could only be loved if they decided to respect me and see me.
Insanely thankful that I am now married to potentially the kindest and most caring person I have ever met and continuing to heal.
Jonathan, your explanation of accountability and what a "bad person" looks like in reality (21:30) is so spot on! I had such an aha moment, thank you much for that! People who have treated us unfairly can be good at heart, their toxic behavior is most likely a result of demons they carry within them. It's very valuable to understand acknowledge that and wish for them to work through their faults because it's probably making them miserable themselves... But it's still justified to draw boundaries if they are not prepared to take accountability for their actions and say "I wish you all the best, but I can't and won't have you in my life since you're making me miserable."
“despite the absolute chaos that is Ezra Miller” lmaooooo
Well played. Totally agree, their character in this movie is pretty rad.
@Mihail0 ezra miller is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.
@E-soup leonardo DiCaprio
@Tiph I would too, Emma Corrin has been killing it lately though, and they are enby 🤩
@Cassidy Wogan the first thing your page shows is that you are subscribed to Matt Walsh, and that speaks volumes 💀
@Tiph Haha, he's a guy.
sam is a great example of a MPDG being humanized, breaking the stereotype and showing her dimensions, i love her so much
I always felt this was like a slightly darker and serious John Hughes movie. Also it spoke to me deeply. I felt a kinship with Charlie. I wish it was made many years before so it could have helped me understand myself more when I was a teenager. The outsider, the odd one out, the oversensitive one, often seen as weak. I see him as empathic, introvert and a hypersensitive personality with depression, anxiety, ptsd. I was always told to grow tougher skin, don't take it so seriously, but the environment and people around had such an impact. Feeling the pain and struggle felt by others and almost feeling guilty and failure if you are unable to make them feel better, because you know how aweful it is to struggle. You absorb that along with the voices in your head screaming for someone to help you, understand you, and care about you but thinking you don't deserve it. It is a paradox and contradiction that make you war with your self. It took until late 20s early 30s to start to understand that the ability to feel and emphasize is not a weakness. You just have to figure out how to understand and cope with it. Same goes with trauma. That I am still working on. This movie actually made me understand myself a little more and wish the discussion of mental health existed in my home and school as a teenager.
Watching this movie and reading this book in middle school messed me up bc I had a lot of repressed memories at the time that I wasn’t aware I was repressing. This movie was certainly a trigger but I’m grateful for it. I felt less alone bc I thought “if there’s a movie about it I can’t be the only one experiencing this” I also felt like I could maybe one day open up and tell ppl what happened, and it could even be beneficial for me to do so. Now I’m 23 and this movie still sticks with me, kind of as a reminder of when mentally everything changed, I now realize it changed for the better.
This movie had such an impression on me when I first saw it. When I saw the "we accept the love we think we deserve" scene I burst into tears because I was feeling stuck in a toxic, abusive relationship and it just really made my situation hit home and I began to see the relationship for what it was.
This movie means a lot to me. Now that I think about it, this movie is basically my life. I lost my first best friend at 16 to a car accident. I have BPD. I am a writer. And feel exactly like Charlie. Never seen depression shown so well. The part where he's walking back and forth and keeps rubbing his face... exactly what it's like to have a manic moment.
And you wouldn't believe me, but in 10th grade a senior, the FINEST senior, was into me. It was the best moment of my life and felt like this movie.
I didn’t fully grasp the whole abuse angle when I saw this originally, I had no frame of reference for that sort of thing. What spoke to me was the self-hatred, Charlie’s self harm, and the feeling that you’re not living your own life and merely looking at everyone else’s.
@excessively fangirling bookworm this was the same for me, I've loved this movie since I was a kid but I didn't understand what had happened to him, though my mom and older sister did, despise me actually going through something similar that I just.. wasn't quite aware of at the time. when I watched it again at an older age I saw it much more clearly and it's only driven me deeper into my infatuation with how well it's portrayed, given that I'm older now and really connect with the last 3rd of the movie.
@Nicole Bellemore I wish I could heart comments on here lol. You are valid
@cecilia I. Ogwude If you can miss it if you blink, I'm not sure it's that well done. I am a survivor of child abuse myself but not sexual abuse but still, I wish Charlie's backstory, once it was being revealed, had been less implied and instead actually explicitly acknowledged inside of the movie. Or if it's going to only be implied, at least imply it in more scenes than one repressed memory sequence done quickly... imply it in a conversation afterward too or something.
Thank you for this comment. I never understood the full context of the movie when I first watched it and I never understood why people thought it was so much more than I saw it as… it’s just a film you realise more and more things as you open your eyes to them. Anyway, I thought I was the only one who experienced it as you described the first time. Thanks.
@cecilia I. Ogwude I'd say they do talk around it, but it's also tastefully done - I saw this movie as a kid and having no prior contact to the topic of abuse, I didn't really get the meaning. When I got older, it's like a path was unlocked for me and I understood the entire subtext, that I couldn't grasp earlier.
In my opinion, the way they approached it, you understand more the wiser/ street-smarter you get and the more your concious mind latches onto subtlety.
My therapist taught me that boundaries are the way I can love you (whoever you are) AND love myself. I think that’s really beautiful.
i have not been a victim of sexual abuse, but i've been a victim of emotional abuse by my parents, and it is so hard to even realize what you go through until you stop to question what is going on. it was even harder because all around i heard people say how nice people my parents were, so i thought that it was just me who thought they were not. but you guys are right and good people can do terrible stuff. i'm still recovering, little by little ^^
Ive never seen such an accurate portrayal of the devastation and out of body pain and numbness that comes with a panic attack/ breakdown the way this movie does it. Especially because his memories of abuse are cut into it so harshly. Its very realistic and they really did an amazing job of catching that on screen
I remember reading the book and seeing the movie and relating to it so much especially Charlie the black out fights, the banging on the head, the lost track of times, feeling I don’t deserve love, the pain he feels for his family just everything I felt what he felt I was sexually abused by my cousin at 6 years old it went on until I was 10 and I suppressed it so much until I got triggered when I was again sexually abused by first boyfriend at 14 and he was 17 everything came up the memories I reacted very similar to Charlie and I tried to kill myself at 15 my sister found me what happened to me shaped who I was and for a very long time I could cope I found myself cutting a lot because of it reading the book and watching the movie actually helped me recover from it and therapy as well I am doing better now and if this book and movie taught me one thing it taught me that what happened to me wasn’t my fault and it doesn’t define who I am or who I will be in the future.
When I read this book as a young teenager knowing nothing about it and just heavily identifying with the narrater, who wrote this in letterform if I remember correctly, it came as such a shock to me to realize about his own abuse because I had similiar experience and the realization that in this case it was a boy getting abused (kudos for changing it up, not that I want anyone to be abused) and that the abuser had been abused herself threw me in a spiral. I got sent into a mental institution when I was 16 and my therapist (meaning well) focused so much on understanding my abusers (my mom, my grandparents and others) that I instantly became Miss "I have sympathy for everyone" and tried to understand every motivation and trauma they themselves went through that I completely forgot about my own pain . In trying to be better than them I did myself a disservice and never allowed myself to be really angry and realize that I can forgive them but that I don´t owe them forgiveness. I still struggle with that.
When I was in my 20's, I didn't call it "Manic Pixie Dream Girl". One of my besties and I called it. "Being the dancing bear". When in public we were both wild, crazy and loving. We made people laugh and were always doing crazy things and telling crazier stories. When we met...we both stopped.
We bonded over how exhausting it was to try to live up to that. We felt like we always had to perform. We had both been abused and didn't want anyone else to feel pain. So we over compensated when around 'people'. And we never let anyone see us in pain.
I'm with Alan. I hate the trope. Because we were supporting characters in our own lives and have had to learn how to put ourselves out there as three dimensional main characters. And that's not a story that's ever told. We didn't get a roadmap and couldn't afford therapy. She and I figured it out together. We could have done with a sassy talking dog.
@Cokiecat101 ❤️
this hit me hard
I heard the term "Dancing Bear" when I was a child; I never associated it "Manic Pixie" until now and it fits!
Thank you for this revelation.
I actually read a(n) (audio)book (not that great, but I liked the character) the main character was like this. It was the opening scene where she was at a boat party hating every minute of it. She threw her hat in the river, told the other guests someone needed to get it, then jumped in herself, and was all "Oops guess I have to go home and change" so she could skip.
Everyone else was "That's so (main character's name), when she isn't drinking and gambling dressed like a call girl, she is wonderfully entertaining..."
@Alysha Speed I do have a great community. 🙂 And I don't make space anymore for people who don't like me for me. Not worth it! Agreed that the pedestal blows. 😆
Thank you for covering this movie, even though it really is dependent on how old you were when it came out. For me, I was a 13 year old just discovering my anxiety attacks and trying to come to terms that it was going to be a part of my entire life as I watched all the other kids have fun and make friends seemingly effortlessly. They were free and I was terrified all the time. This movie saved me.
I love the fact that the story plot is set back in the 80's and it's so well made that it feels just like how they made movies back then and it's a 2012 film
I never read this book or saw this movie, but when it was really popular I came across this quote from it. The words carried my heart through a very dark time because it put into words my simultaneous grief and hope: “So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”
I am 50 years old and have NEVER heard the connection you have made with abused people who often times recreate situations in their lives so that they can feel like they have finally won... Wow... My mind is blown. How often do we blame someone who has struggled with their lives, who might be in a cycle of trying to gain victory over repeated, uninvited abuses they have endured. I have to go pick my jaw up off the door. Thank you for this video...
In therapy school we call this "repetition compulsion". If you see somebody who´s not dumb making the SAME dumb mistake again and again: first guess is that they are doing this. Trying to make the past come out right this time.
Cudoos to this film for highlighting that sexual abuse can and does happen to men (more commonly than you think).
EDIT: Also, the most ACCURATE portrayal of ptsd/repressed memories and suffering with mental health as a teen that I've seen in a movie. SO MANY films/actors play up ptsd as some BIG dramatic flashback, when in fact its a lot more insidious than that - it's more like an Oak tree, you only see the tree, but it's roots have slowly penetrated the deep earth and tangled with the other roots around it. Years of therapy taught me to slowly untangle and unearth those roots one by one, it's painstakingly, sure, but without those roots, that tree cannot sustain itself, it withers and grows smaller by the day.
I watched this movie when it came out, my brother ended his life that summer, the scene he confesses that his friend died by suicide broke my heart and what Emma Watson's and Ezra Miller's characters did next absolutely destroyed me. It was so kind, so sweet. I related so hard to Charlie in many ways and as pretentious it can be, it's probably my favourite film because I felt seen for the first time.
@2degucitas I'm pretty sure they meant they don't care how pretentious the movie is, not their feelings
It’s not pretentious at all to relate to a realistic character and story. It would be pretentious if you said something like “ I feel like I have a lot in common with James Bond”
Sorry for your loss, and thanks for sharing your story.
My condolences, that must have been incredibly hard for you, but I'm glad that this film provided a comfort to you. 💖🤗
That's NOT pretentious! Not even close!
I have CPTSD. I've had it since I was a kid. It was due to a lot of things I pushed away and would come up due to noises. My mom and dad would call me mental and crazy cause whenever I was forced to face those thoughts, I would hit my head until I received a concussion. I never knew anybody else who did this until I was 15 and watched this movie the first time. I have never felt less alone than seeing Charlie have the same trauma response that I do.
The book version of Perks got me through school. There's a portion in the book about a suicide note that isn't in the film, and it's a damn shame, because it is singlehandedly the best section of the entire thing. If you look up "perks of being a wallflower poem" it'll be the one that starts with the line "Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines".
Also a tragedy that they didn't include music from the Swans.
How Charlie feels about his aunt is the same I've felt about someone I've been in a relationship with. I still view them in my head as this great person. Kind, sweet, one of the few people who really accepted me the way I was. This person made me feel like I could actually be accepted. Like I was defective.
But...this was also the same person who SA'd me multiple times. And I always struggled with how to feel about that. I also completely forgot about it for months and had this one view of them in my mind. I felt horrible and guilty for leaving and thought that I was being punished for it (I was in a abusive relationship afterwards and thought that was my punishment). That I deserved it. Even now I feel like viewing them as a good person somehow cancels out other things they did (but it really doesn't).
I watched this movie as a teen and never fully understood a lot of things in it so I love that you guys walked about it.
This book came out when I was in high school and it was amazing. It was the hot potato book where you never knew the source you just knew who gave it to you who gave it them and who you gave it to in turn. It was an awesome time in a shitty stage of life. I will always thank Stephen for making it. The film didn’t disappoint either 💜
Logan made a beautiful performance in this movie. I read the book before the movie came out and I cried a lot with both things. It's one of my favourite movies ever and it has a special place in my soul.
I read the book in my junior year of high school and mailed a letter to the author because I was so moved by it. During my freshman year at college, my mom forwarded to me a handwritten response from Stephen Chbosky. Such a treat.
@It’sJust_Bones So many flavors and you chose salty.
and then everyone clapped.
hey, please could you send me the address where you wrote to? does he have a P.O. box or something like that?
Same! Minus* the letter part
I related so much to Charlie. We don't share the same story (only small parts of it) but I was a lot and still am like him. I've always been an empathetic wallflower.
Gotta say this book really changed some of my teenagehood. My best friend and I both read it while going through all the mental health struggles of teens with anxiety and depression. At some points it felt like we could just talk about quotes from the book and it felt like opening up to each other.
I love Emma’s attempt at an American accent. Her British accent still comes through in various moments, but I think it makes her [movie] “accent” more interesting
I think age when it came out makes a huge difference. I am in my early 30s. I think I was in college when I saw it in theaters. Mental health was being discussed at that time, but not in the messy way this movie shows. My friends and I were trying to work through trauma, diagnosis, major family issues, figure out who we want to be as adults, dating, and make it to class on time. I know I found it unlikely I would survive to graduation. There was this heavy pain that felt a little lighter when doing risky things with other people. I tried to be perfect so very few people saw my pain. This movie made me feel less alone and gave me hope. Fast forward to today and I graduated with honors, am happily married, and have a meaningful job in the field I planned. I am so thankful for the people who were there for me during those rough years. Things can get better if you give it time.
i think this is (one of) the best 'coming of age' films of the 2010's... it just spoke to me in a way movies rarely have
yes I relate to charlie's past, no I don't want you to feel sorry
"We need movies about bland black woman being woken up by manic pixie dream non-binary"
Y-yes... Yes!! We DO need that!!
@Jacques Daniel's it’s for money lol
They don’t care, as long as it makes money and makes twitter people clap that’s what matters.
I volunteer to play the manic dream pixie non-binary!
Now I must see that!
@CICADEUS There is hope in Jesus! Repent and put your trust in Him! He loves you! God bless!
I meant that it is not good to build a movie on wokeness. Instead of focusing on creating a good movie. I do not care what race anyone has
like, it's not forced diversity to cast a good actor, regardless of race? yall just so used to seeing minority people sidelined and having 30 variations on "sandy blonde blue eyed able bodied white guy" that you find it weird to see them in normal shit?
I love the book! I presented it as a book report freshman year in high school, and I related to it so much. Then my english teacher, however in front of the entire class said “Kind of a girly book.” For the rest of the year I read and presented shitty action books to avoid that kind of embarrassment again. That was one of the oddest roughest encounters I had with toxic masculinity.
I loved this book so so much when I was a teenager (and I still do). It was the first one to ever make me cry. Although I didn't go through as traumatic stuff as the main character did, I was going through severe depression. And I could relate so much to his description of emptiness, not feeling anything and noticing the background starting to shift when you sit there, staring at yourself in the mirror. It just was the perfect description of how I felt at the time and I just couldn't put it into words myself.
Unfortunately, I didn't like the movie. It didn't transport the story and the inner turmoil of Charlie, as well as the book, did. If you haven't read the book you don't understand a lot of things that happen in the movie, which ruins it for me.
I watched this movie when I was way too little to understand it, and I related to Charlie even then actually. Now I understand it, and I still unfortunately relate to Charlie a lot and this episode is bringing attention to many things I will be in denial about so thanks for that
This movie helped me fully grasp my intrusive thoughts. Chbosky can just really make an incredible story!
I hope you guys consider reacting to Succession. I know, I know, it IS a TV series but the (family) dynamic between the characters is just so Cinema Therapy worthy. Would really be interesting to hear your takes on it!
Your comments about assigning archetypes to different people made me realize that I'd love for you guys to discuss Cabin in the Woods. I felt that was such a great exploration of the horror movie archetypes being shifted around to different people than you'd expect. Every character in the main cast of that movie is set up to be a different trope from classic teen horror movies, but not the trope you'd expect from first glance.
Yes please :D
Up!
It could also be used to look at how the people behind the monsters are justifying their role as accomplices in the sacrifice of the main characters.
Absolutely would love it if they did this!!
Yeah!
Hey! I've been watching your videos and really loving it! Including this one, The Perks of Being a Wallflower was one of my favorite movies growing up. Now, I just wanted to talk about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, cause as Jonathan says, it gets thrown around a lot. In my understanding, yes, it is everything Alan said it is, usually a girl, that is vivacious and wakes up the - usually a guy - from his boring ass life, but to make it the trope - again, in my understanding - that's the sole reason that character has to be there. These girls don't have lifes, don't have issues besides the ones that will help the guy in some way. They magically appear and disappear whenever they are needed and that's why it's a toxic representation (and yes, 98% of the time they are written by men). But the examples you used got me confused. I believe Clementine from Eternal Sunshine and Summer from 500 Days of Summer not to be Manic Pixie Dream Girls. As Clementine says, she's NOT a concept (sorry to correct you Alan). These two women get fantasized by their men to be perfect and a little crazy and everything different that they needed in their lives, but the movie doesn't show them like that. They have lifes, worries, and character flaws and growth. They don't magically appear and disappear. If being vivacious was the trope it is to say that impulsive vivid girls are not real enough for fiction.
Anyway, love you guys, keep doing what you're doing. I just like to read about this particular trope and wanted to share my opinion on it.
I’ve only seen this movie once because I was just so messed up after watching it. I saw it at a time when I was just starting to come to terms with my childhood abuse and trying to get help for my self harm and thoughts of ending things. I related to the main character so strongly and fully broke down watching it. Which hurt but actually helped me open up to a therapist.
This was one of my favorite movies in high school, and it became really important when I began realizing that I was struggling with mental illness. Now that I’m older I’d love to go back and rewatch this movie to see how far I’ve come from that difficult phase of my life
Something I think both the book and the movie handled in a way that I don’t know that I had seen prior is the feeling of detachment. My own personal experience with trauma and untreated PTSD is that , I truly thought I was fine. I didn’t feel real, my memories didn’t feel like my own and that was scary, but I didn’t recognize that as something being off. It’s a cliche - but that feeling of existing but not living was so present in me and I really felt that in Charlie in the movie. It’s safer not feeling things , it’s not a full life , but it’s safe.
The memories and feelings coming out him in a way that is both blatant and abstract also really meant a lot to me. Remembering is horrible and terrifying because of the memory, but also because of the confusion that comes with it. I feel like it can be hard to trust what is real and what is not and when you’ve spent so long repressing it and deciding that the problem is you, that you are just fundamentally wrong and that’s why you cant seem to function like those around you.
I appreciate this movie and book to this day. No , it’s not the only one of its kind , but there’s something so raw and special and imperfect about it that makes is, at least to me, stand out above the rest. No character is complete healed by the end, nor do you know them 100% - and that’s what healing from trauma is. You can’t wrap it up with a Hollywood ending , and to me, it’s almost demeaning when writers try to do just that.
Haven't watched yet but so excited to see you doing this, as someone with PTSD who first saw this movie after being diagnosed when I was 14 and always commended his performance especially at the end.
I would love to see you talk more about the manic pixie dream girl and how that relates to women with ADHD. As a woman with adhd, my symptoms have been romanticized to fit this trope.
yes! also true with women with ASD.
I'm an AuDHDer. Hard relate.
I’ve noticed an ongoing theme in my life is being the mpdg in my relationships. Part of it’s the adhd I think part of it is a trauma response.
As someone with ADHD who also wrote an essay on the male gaze in American identity, featuring the MPDG, I would also love to see this
@cattherat Not a movie, the show Life Sentence is really good because the main character is cured of cancer and is figuring out her life without cancer. I’m not explaining it right but it’s good!
Sometimes even the mention of this movie can bring me to tears. It hurts so much to watch but it’s also amazing and has some of the happiest scenes ive ever seen.
“We accept the love we think we deserve”
Is tattooed on me for life. I absolutely love this movie and the book. So glad you reacted to it.
I remember watching this for the very first time and how hard it was for me not to burst into tears. I watched this with a group of people who didn’t know what had happened to me. This movie is such a big part of why I was able to open up to people about my past trauma. Why I was able to open up about my mental illness, and the way I saw so much sadness and pain in the world. I had never seen myself on screen before, and then there was Charlie. Charlie let me know that I wasn’t alone and that I wasn’t “weird”. The most beautiful thing about his character to me was showing me that people who have been abused don’t have to become abusers themselves. They can grow to be compassionate and gentle, even though they struggle. Thank you so much for doing this movie
I really love his breakdown scene because it’s the most I’ve ever related to a character with mental health issues. I’ve never really seen it portrayed the same way in any other movie/show/book.
I have chills all over my body, thank you for doing this movie! I cry every time I watch it, and now her I am sobbing at this video.....the understanding that comes with you guys explaining the bts that leads to this movie and characters is just wow. Like yeah I knew, but also HEARING IT just hits different. thank you so much.
On the note of people needing therapy because they've *done* terrible things, that's something that doesn't get talked about much, because we generally think of people who do terrible things as being deserving of suffering. And that might be true, to a degree. I think we need to understand that we are all capable of doing terrible things
I agree but it’s still extremely difficult to empathize especially as someone who has second-hand witnessed abuse.
@Mateo Castillo You keep quoting "good people" as if that's something I said. It isnt. I said that people who want to be better people should have access to help.
You're going off about sexual abuse as if A) it was what I was talking about B) You know anything about me or my history.
But sure, I'll bite. In the context of the movie with Charlie feeling conflicted about his aunt, and what Jono says about people not having to be terrible people to do terrible things, I would argue that the aunt, if she had survived and was torn up about what she did, then yes she should be allowed to seek help. Charlie does nit need to forgive her, he doesnt need to keep it a secret, her family does not need to love her, she does not need to be handed a get out if jail free card, but she should be given the option to try and get help.
And you know what? I'm not even saying that goes for every predator out there. Again, people are not objective. They dont fit into black and white even though their crimes do. They committed a crime, they should be punished, but depending on the person, their motivations, and their state of mind when the crime was committed then they should be allowed the aid to become better.
For Charlie's aunt, I dont even think it was that she was into kids as much as her own circumstances caused something in her to break, which Charlie also comments on in the book. That doesnt mean she didnt commit an act of pedophilia or doesnt deserve to be punished for it. She does. And before you try to say I'm saying she should get off easy or I'm making excuses for her or that other people who commit the same crime deserve to pity, um... no. Again, for the people in the back, you commit a crime, you pay for the crime.
But the cycle of abuse is one that all too often makes victims into perpetrators and victims deserve help if they truly are seeking to change their circumstances.
And just to hopefully drive my point home because I am not saying abusers are good people, I was abused both verbally and sexually. Know what I did? No, I did not turn the other cheek or argue that he was a damaged individual. He at no point ever wanted to change and tried to go after my brother, so I nearly took a metal bat to his head, knowing that doing so would make me a murderer. I fully accepted that because something in me just broke and I needed something drastic to change. Thankfully I was caught and ended up getting the help I needed to break that cycle where my abuser almost turned me into a killer and ruined my life. Because for about a decade after the fact I thought that I was trash for even considering to sink so low. So dont come at me as if I'm someone who doesnt understand just how awful a crime Charlie's aunt committed.
Still, I said what i said. If people want to become better they should have that chance.
@Haven Okay? I just want to make sure we're all on the same page cause the movie talks about child sexual abuse. And personally I think that Jono's words are not very accurate in the context. He has children and I doubt that if someone did something like that to them he would dare to say “what they did to my kids was wrong, but they are still good people”. I think we are pushing the limits and it is absurd. The motivations behind a child sex abuser are of zero importance and what these people need is not therapy, it is rejection and death. And there is no reason for them to be call "good people" in any context. Wtf.
yes! people often do terrible things BECAUSE they have suffered. "Punishment" would just further motivate terrible things. They deserve gentleness now.
27:28- the moment in the movie.❤️
I think this is a movie every college freshman needs to watch. Anyone esp. in college, who hasnt. They'll hv a better understanding of what a healthy relationship really is, and the love they would rather deserve.
In the book, one of my favorite parts is when he drives Candace to have an abortion... it's just a very eye opening part about the book and really shows what kind of person Charlie is
I never got to have a teenage moment with friends feeling infinite. It was constantly emphasized to me that such feelings were immature, arrogant, unrighteous, unworthy and unacceptable.