Really, there's no word for this film other than "infinite." Which is apt, because that's how the protagonist of the story feels throughout his adolescene.
The goal of this story, as I see it, was to produce a film that didn't feel like just-another-teenage-movie. "Perks" succeeds in this goal overwhelmingly--the create something that doesn't cheapen the teenage experience.
As we grow older, as we move forward in our lives, we forget how we felt at 16. More than that--we want to forget how we felt at 16. We want to make our actions during adolescene unimportant, because back then, we were still under construction. We want to think that who we were in high school wasn't real. That what we did didn't matter, because we were still figuring out who we were.
While it's true that the time for experimenting with identity is during adolescence, that fact does not make any of our experiences less important. We would all like to to disregard our mistakes and crystallize our successes. "Perks" argues that no matter what, everything we expereince is important. We should remember the good along with the bad.
"Perks" challenges how we, as adults, perceive our years in high school. It says that our pain, our uncertainty, our emotional struggles--all of that was real. And we should strive to remember that with clarity, because we can't remember our recovery from pain realistically unless we do. Our discoveries, our reaching out for understanding, our being reached out for--how do we know this if not emotionally? How do we find happiness if not in the midst of pain?
What use is there in remembering the golden days without remembering how our friends saved us-- and what they saved us from?
I find myself wondering if watching "Perks" as a teenager is different from watching it as an adult. If we all, no matter what age, want to elevate our past experiences. Make them into something better than they were.
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