I hope that one day you can tear down the wall and see more sun in the bigger world.
Wallflower is a hardy herbaceous plant that can live on old walls, rock formations or mine surfaces. Originally it refers to a girl sitting in a corner at a dance or party, with no one paying attention. Later it was referred to as a person who is lonely, introverted, and unable to get along with everyone!
At the beginning of the film, there is a long and dim tunnel that leads to nowhere. The lights keep flashing in front of the eyes, just like that period of adolescence where the future is uncertain and uncertain.
This is a film about the pain and growth of adolescence. The film is presented through two lines, which involves "school bullying", "drug abuse", "sexual orientation" and "childhood molestation" and other issues. The bright line mainly tells how the male protagonist Charlie stepped out of the darkness of the past step by step, opening his heart to accept others and forgive himself; while the dark line explains the impact of the hidden figure of Aunt Helen on his life through Charlie's fragmented memories of his childhood. Influence.
Charlie is a sensitive, timid and somewhat autistic high school student. He even felt that high school life was just 1,385 torturous days and nights. On Christmas Day when he was a child, Aunt Helen had a car accident on the way to get him a birthday present. This incident lingered in his mind like a nightmare, and he would always have some strange hallucinations from then on. When he first entered high school, introverted Charlie couldn't make any friends at school. He was like a backlit wallflower, unnoticed in a dark corner, until he met two brothers, Patrick and Sam.
Patrick is a homosexual, and his secret lover is Brad, the most popular captain of the school football team. Although the two like each other, Brad does not have the courage to make their relationship public. So even if they meet in the corridor of the library, the two of them have to pretend that they don't know each other. Unlike Brad, Patrick is not afraid to reveal his identity in front of his friends. He is confident, witty and humorous, and does not look serious at all. Many people in the school called him "Nothing", but he didn't care at all. He would also laugh at them in turn, "They have no creativity at all and they are still telling the same old jokes." He would draw on his face with watercolor pens He wore a fake beard and imitated the teacher in class (when other senior students were bullying the freshmen, he teased the teacher). He also threatened the teacher during the final exam of the handicraft class, "If you don't let me pass, I will have to pay for it next semester." You have to teach me."
Sam is Patrick's half-sister. This beautiful girl is rebellious and yearns for freedom. She seems to be born with the spotlight and has many things that Charlie's character does not possess. At the same time, she was thoughtful. Charlie told her about his friend's suicide, and she instantly realized that he might not have any other friends. However, beneath the seemingly strong exterior is a scarred, sensitive and fragile heart. When she was 11 years old, her father's boss took away her "first kiss". She longs to be loved, but she often encounters people who don't care about her.
At the school dance, Charlie, who had no dance partner, stood alone in a dark corner with a wine glass. Looking at Sam and Patrick in the middle of the dance floor, they were enjoying the music and lights, dancing crazily. As if after some inner struggle, Charlie drank a sip of wine. His clumsy body followed the beat and slowly walked onto the dance floor like a fighting cock.
The boy's bravery paid off, and that night, Charlie attended Patrick's party. When Patrick raised his glass and welcomed him with his friends, he seemed to understand what Mr. Anderson said: "You should learn to participate."
After the party, on the way to send Charlie home, the three young people suddenly heard a beautiful rock song in the car, but no one knew the name of the song. Sam then suggested going to the tunnel, but Charlie didn't know why. Under Sam's pressure, Patrick changed the direction of the car.
When that crazy rebellious girl got out of the car, stood at the back of the car and opened her arms, "flying in the wind" in the tunnel of flickering light and shadow, accompanied by the unknown "Tunnel Song", For the first time in his life, Charlie felt a sense of belonging. "I feel infinite!"
One night when Charlie came home, he found that his sister Candace was arguing with her boyfriend. During the fierce argument, the boyfriend slapped her sister. Charlie angrily wanted to stand up for his sister, but Candace stopped him and told him not to tell anyone. This incident has been lingering in Charlie's mind, and he suddenly thought of Sam and Aunt Helen, who had also been dating people who didn't care about them.
——“Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date?”
——“We accept the love we think we deserve.” (He thought he only deserved that kind of person.
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Soon, the freshman year of high school was coming to an end. Patrick and Sam both received university admission invitations one after another. Charlie was also able to bravely raise his hand in class. The former "wallflower" "Youth" finally began to escape from the dark and damp corners and spread towards the sunshine.
However, when it comes to love, he still has not learned to take the initiative. Those ambiguous emotions were all hidden in a small tape or a melancholy book of poems and given to Sam. But Sam didn't know this, after all, Charlie had never asked her out.
The night before Sam is to leave, Charlie stays to help her pack. Thinking of his previous bad relationship experiences, Sam suddenly felt that he was so small and couldn't catch anyone.
——"Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?" (Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?)
——"We accept the love we think we deserve." ((Because) we only accept the love we think we deserve).
Sam couldn't help but ask Charlie, then why do you never date me? It turned out that she also liked Charlie, but Charlie's inability to move forward made her think that no one liked her with a bad past. "You can't just set there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love." ) Looking at Sam, whom he had been secretly in love with for a long time, Charlie finally couldn't help but kiss him.
Originally thought that Charlie could get out of the dark clouds of the past calmly, but when Sam and Patrick drove farther and farther away, Charlie lost control of his emotions, and he found that he was still alone in the end. . (Memories always come back to him with great force when he is alone.)
He returned home in a daze, and the painful memories that had happened before his eyes emerged one by one - the dispute between his sister and her boyfriend. , Patrick's breakup with his boyfriend, Aunt Helen's car accident...
The emotional rainstorm hit him like bullets, and he desperately tried to hold back the sadness, "Don't cry! Don't cry!" But the huge wave of memories overwhelmed him, and at that moment, Charlie collapsed. He walked into the kitchen and looked at the fruit knife lying on the cutting board.
In his childhood, Aunt Helen once moved into their home because of emotional difficulties, and molested Charlie when he was still ignorant and innocent. Later, Aunt Helen's car accident left a huge shadow on Charlie. On the one hand, he hated the psychological trauma she had brought to him. On the other hand, he felt sad about her death and even blamed himself for it.
At the end of the film, Charlie finally untied his heart knot with the help of a doctor, and Sam and Patrick also came back from school to visit him. In the cool summer night, the three of them drove to the tunnel. The song "Heroes" they had been looking for for a long time was played loudly in the car. Charlie got into the back of the car and imitated Sam's open arms in the tunnel, feeling the youthfulness. crazy. "And in this moment, I swear! we are infinite"
Through the dim lights and long tunnels, we will have an infinite sky.