"Wallflower Boy" is a photo album about youth, which collects amber time in an orderly manner. I thought: Maybe everyone can find their own shadow in this movie, and after the movie leaves, they still savor a story about friendship, love, and growing wounds.
"This is not my youth, my youth is more simple than this, but it is not beautiful, just a mountain of books, and a shallow love that snippets in the cracks of books." 」
Charlie carefully wrote a note for this period of time. On Charlie's first day of school, he could already imagine himself being marginalized, he would not be hated by everyone, but he would not be remembered, and perhaps he would spend his high school life in a bland manner, enduring inexplicable loneliness, and time ticking 1385 days before leaving school.
Charlie's former best friend committed suicide, and he became a lonely survivor. The memory was too heavy to digest, so Charlie repented of his friend's last words and souls, and lived independently.
After that day, Charlie's personality became withdrawn, and he did not dare to easily establish deep friendships. Fortunately, as the plot progresses, he meets Shan and Patrick, and at a high school family gathering, because he accidentally ate a cake mixed with marijuana, he unconsciously said his past, and officially got the approval of Shan and Patrick.
Walking into the circle of friends, they will run together, they will play the teacher, they will pretend to play the Rocky Horror Show, and most importantly, they never have to judge each other in the past.
In the process of integrating into the group, Charlie actually went through a complete healing process of trauma. Beginning with the accidental spitting out of words full of psychological black pressure, he accepted the existence of his extremely negative emotions, and Shan, Patrick and other friends gave a safe space to speak, so that these words formed a sympathy for each other.
Patrick said to Charlie, "You're insightful and understanding, you're a meticulous boy." This statement is very important, in the face of trauma Patrick to give a positive cognitive reappraisal, which is based on not denying the tragedy of the event itself, giving self-recognition, even if the pain changes us, but the pain also makes us precipitate, shaping us more able to face the next challenges of life.
The last step is as Shan also told him: "You can't always sit on the side and think that this is love." 」
He wants to reconcile with the past, and through mutual support with friends, Charlie knows that he is not the protagonist of the tragedy, he is full of vitality, he can stand up and enjoy the bright lights of the night, and can marvel at the beauty in front of him. Listening to music and riding the wind with the person you love the most, this moment life is infinite. The sadness contained in those will eventually fade and become the sour flavor of life.
Another question that haunts Charlie is that he thinks that his sister, Aunt Helen, Shan, and even Patrick are all in love with someone who doesn't really care for them.
Charlie's memories are ethereal, remembering that one day Shan told him that her father's boss had taken her first kiss when Shan was eleven, and after that she always drunk herself, and when she woke up in a strange place the next day, Shan continued, "A lot of people think I deserve better, only I don't think."
San numbs herself with her love history, while Patrick humbly courtes in an unrecognized relationship, and Richard wonders why they are always around the people who hurt them.
"Why do people I love choose people who don't care about us?" Charlie asked reluctantly.
"Because we only accept the love we think we deserve." The teacher said so.
However, the same is not true of the wounds that Charlie has buried deep within. "Aunt Helen died because of me..." Aunt Helen died in a car accident on the way to buy him a birthday present.
When everyone thinks that Charlie is just immersed in the blow of sadness and thus has hallucinations, Charlie is afraid: "But what if I actually want her to die..." His head accumulated too many thoughts to unravel, the person who loved him the most did the worst thing to him (sexual assault by relatives), and part of him actually hated Aunt Helen, right?
The trauma of the most trusted people who hurt their emotions is called "betrayal trauma." The trauma of betrayal is often not the most hurtful thing about the event itself, but the most heart-wrenching thing is that the trust invested in a loved one is ruthlessly torn apart.
The betrayed person will experience a long period of guilt, self-blame, frustration, shame, self-doubt, despair and other emotions, and repeatedly fall into the trap of "rumination", such as "what must have I done to make him betray me", "If I can do better, maybe he will not leave" and other thought cycles, just like Charlie blames his aunt's accident on himself, and the victim will even involuntarily recall the details of the past. Try to find your own possibility in the ocean beyond the cognitive load.
Those accumulated emotions fermented and accumulated in his heart, and Charlie was too afraid to remember, so he chose to bury this memory. People who experience the trauma of betrayal, although they seem to smooth out the superficial scars, often show a low sense of self-worth, which also reduces the standards and expectations of the relationship. This is why we only accept love that we think we deserve.
Towards the end of the film, Charlie, Shan, and Patrick are also ambitious, and after graduation, they go to the ocean.
However, the departure of the best friend unconsciously loosens Charlie's deliberately buried whispers, the memory of sexual assault as a child is called in his mind, the dark and disgusting hands continue to emerge, the great pain makes him unable to load, and finally Charlie attempts suicide.
When he woke up in the hospital, he underwent a reconstructive treatment, and the psychologist told him, "We can't choose where we come from, but we can choose where we go."
The film uses three tunnel rides to tell the psychological growth of the characters, once Shan and her beloved music to poke the body out of the skylight, open her arms to let the wind make the hair tip dance on her cheek, at this moment all the troubles are left behind by the wind, she only feels her own existence.
Finally, there is Charlie, who is like a butterfly born of pupae, stirring up the air and celebrating the metamorphosis, and Charlie knows that all this will one day become a story, and their group photo will become an old photo. But now, this moment is not a story. This moment is happening, he exists.
Thank you for watching, paying attention to me, and learning more about it.