The Perks of Being a Wallflower came at a very interesting moment for millennial/Gen-Z cusp high schoolers. Based on the popular 1999 novel by Stephen Chbosky and adapted by Chbosky in 2012, Perks arrived a decade ago during the height of “the Tumblr era,” when teens at the time like myself gravitated to the website’s curation of hipster trends and nostalgia-inflected aesthetics. On an average day in the early 2010s, chances were high you would come across a crying Logan Lerman GIF, an image of the Perks cast sitting on some bleachers, or a screenshot of one of the film’s iconic aphorisms, “In this moment, I swear we are infinite” and “We accept the love we think we deserve,” on your feed. Even though the overuse of those quotes and pictures ultimately sapped them of their poignancy, Perks...
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-18T20:22:46+00:00“>May 18, 2021 | 4:22pm ET Ben Platt reprises his Tony Award-winning role in the official trailer for the cinematic adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. With music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the musical Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of an anxious, awkward high school student who writes letters to himself at his therapist’s request. One of those letters is snatched up by Connor, a troubled kid with bullying tendencies who commits suicide soon after. When the letter is found, Connor’s parents reach out to Evan in the mistaken belief that the two were friends. Too uncomfortable to tell the truth, Evan finds himself ensnared in a web ...