Oftentimes, these young love stories are rushed and underdeveloped, and all we as an audience get are two beautiful people who suddenly fall in love. Maya is fiercely smart and motivated, but she too has secrets of her own. His condition becomes a shameful secret, as well as a seemingly insurmountable obstacle when he finds himself falling for Maya (Taylor Russell). These moments are raw and unfiltered, where Adam doesn’t feel the need to censor himself or put up a front like he does with his mom and everyone else. The film cleverly crafts a space for Adam to be the narrator, mimicking the journal entry style of the novel, by having his talks with the therapist be a way for us to understand what’s going through his head. His mom, however, isn’t willing to give up, ploughing on zealously, and Adam finds himself in countless doctors’ offices, while she searches the internet for any scrape of hope that can allow her son to lead a normal life. The medication for schizophrenia isn’t a certainty, and Adam seems to be resistant to the usual ones. For Adam, he has to deal with the stigma as well, where you are either feared or made fun of – the isolation is overwhelming. Most of us would know what the condition entails, but this hardly prepares us for the exhausting reality of schizophrenia. The effects are also stylised in a very effective way, allowing us to have some insight of Adam’s interior world. With visions of this magnitude, it is easy to overact and overdo, but Plummer is so authentic. Plummer does such a good job at fleshing out Adam’s reaction to the hallucinations, which are a part of his condition. So here we have a teen who has a clear idea of what he wants to do with his life, with his passion steering him forward, until he discovers that he has schizophrenia, and the forward momentum vanishes. His dad abandoned him and his mom (Molly Parker), and while they adapt to a life without him, Adam finds himself cooking more and through these culinary explorations, discovers his passion for food. At the beginning, our protagonist Adam (Charlie Plummer), for the most part, is a fairly well-adjusted teen. Words on Bathroom Walls is an adaptation of a novel, similarly titled, by Julia Walton. Words on Bathroom Walls doesn’t manage to knock Perks off its throne, but it definitely gets very close, and is definitely on my list for top films of 2020. For the longest time, The Perks of Being A Wallflower has been my top film in this genre, and I consider both the book and film to be absolute perfection in capturing the volatility and vulnerability of being young.

There is a special place in my heart for the coming of age film, otherwise known as films that explore what it means to be a young adult.

Words on bathroom walls book review