Movie Review: Words On Bathroom Walls Is YA At Its Finest
In a time when we are discussing mental health even more, we have found ourselves at a moral and linguistic crossroad. We don’t always know or tell the difference between a jerk with mental illness and a good person with mental illness, and, trust me, there is a difference. Your heart and mind are not, necessarily, bound in health and morality, which is why characters like, Adam (Charlie Plummer) , are so enthralling. He is a good kid with a “crazy” mind.
Words on Bathroom Walls | Official Trailer | In Theaters August 21
Suffering from schizophrenia, Adam has these moments of crisis that make you want to hold him. He can, literally, see the world exploding around him and have to recall and calm himself down so as to remember that he is just in a room, with his parents, talking about school enrollment. The visual effects of this film are fantastic and help the audience immerse into Adam’s mind and the POWERFUL tricks on him. Plummer gives Adam a sense of resilience, intelligence, sincerity, and low-key panic wrapped into one kid trying to figure out how he is supposed to live an ENTIRE life with a brain that can make him see people who are not there or have entities flying at him. The film uses the characters in Adam’s mind to bring both humor and drive just how annoying it is to feel like your brain is residence for a chill hippie ready to heal the world (Annasophia Robb), a tough guy ready to pummel it ( Lobo Sebastian), and a teenager ready to have sex with it (Devon Bostick).
Words on Bathroom Walls Movie Clip – I’ll Crack You (2020) | Movieclips Coming Soon
Yes, Adam knows his hallucinations are not real, but they FEELS real, and the pressure to handle what only he could see versus the world is what makes Adam a magnetic character, and Plummer a superb performer for understanding that mental illness is apart of your humanity: not the entirety of it. Directed by Thor Freudenthal and written by Nick Naveda (as an adaptation of Julia Walton’s novel) Words On Bathroom Walls is surprising because it really is a character piece, Adam, and his journey to falling in love, finding a sense of normalcy and empowerment, and trying to convince the world/ his parents that, somehow, he is okay. The brilliance of Freudenthal and Naveda’s creative partnership is that they saw Words On Bathroom Walls as Adam’s story on how you live, despite feeling deadened. In the beginning, Adam, rightfully, feels screwed, and even his parents, solid performances by Molly Parker as Beth and Walton Goggins as Paul, can’t really argue the feeling away. He has to work harder than anyone around him to find peace and clarity, which is why falling in love is such strange, spectacular experience for him.
Words on Bathroom Walls Movie Clip – Deal (2020) | Movieclips Coming Soon
Taylor Russell sparkles as Maya; giving her a strength and understanding of Adam and the world that makes her appear honorable and integral to Adam’s journey of realizing he may not be able to cure his schizophrenia, but he can heal himself. Thus, what makes Maya and Adam’s love story so intriguing is that it is kind of secondary in this film. Words On Bathroom Walls refreshens teen, romantic dramedies by doing something that even adult, romantic dramedies fail to do: let their character be someone beyond their new partner. Maya does not save Adam, and Adam does not save Maya. They help each and motivate the other to grow, but, in the end, they make the choice for themselves. Adam wants to see himself better because he wants a good, happy life for himself, and that choice of play by Plummer, Freudenthal, and Naveda makes the film special and universal for teens/ people. Sometimes, life really hits you hard with situations, illnesses, and traumas; to the point that you think it is over, even though you are still here and breathing. Words On Bathroom Walls is the story of how someone climbs out of that feeling to love others and himself again. Words On Bathroom Walls Comes Out August 21 in theaters.
