Words on Bathroom Walls is an upcoming teen romantic film starring Charlie Plummer, Taylor Russell, Andy Garcia, Molly Parker, and Walton Goggins. In Words on Bathroom Walls, Plummer plays an average teenager who is just trying to deal with his mother’s new man and liking a girl at a new high school. Oh, and he has schizophrenia. Yea – just something to throw out there.
Pulling Aspects From Previous Films
Words on Bathroom Walls is made in the same spirit of Juno and Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl. Combined with all of the teen romance movies from the early 2000s. It serves as a nostalgic throwback, but it hasn’t been long enough since those days for it to not feel stale. In movies like this, every kid needs their “niche”. The thing that makes them stand out from the others in high school. What makes them seem as if they’re “not like every other kid”. They’re “different”. In reality, Plummer’s Adam could have just possessed the ability to cook. What high school senior can (and has been cooking) cook to the level of Bobby Flay at that age? This could have been enough.
Did The Film Do Any Research?
But, it feels as if they felt that wasn’t enough. He wasn’t different enough. So, what did they do? They gave him schizophrenia. Just like Twilight made Bella “half-albino” without any research as to what actually goes behind a condition like this, it felt like the writers thought schizophrenia sounded good. Look, I’m not an expert in abnormal psychology. And not everyone with schizophrenia is how they portray people as they do in shows like Criminal Minds or movies like the Violinist.
I do know, though; it’s more than just a reason for a kid to be angsty. Schizophrenia typically does appear in someone’s late teens and early twenties. So, they did get it right there. I think that there could have been a larger conversation to be had – perhaps a movie that really talked about what it would be like for someone who has this condition to function in society. Not only that, but someone who has schizophrenia experiencing first experiencing this and dating.
Rating: 3/5
I know that I am being harsh on this movie. It wasn’t meant for a bigger dialogue. It was simply meant as an “awkward” coming of age story. I still feel they could have accomplished this in another way. Plummer and Russell do have great chemistry with each other. Both are clearly rising stars who will hopefully have long careers ahead of them. Their story could have simply been about an awkward kid – the aspiring chef who needs to deal with the fact that his mother is with a new man. A young girl who is intelligent and hard-working, but must provide for her single father and young brothers. There was enough there.
Walton Goggin’s own quirkiness is lost in this movie. Though, I did enjoy Plummer and Garcia’s scenes together.
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