8 Great Movies Told By Liars

Another in the grasps of a mental health care institution, protagonist Charlie continues the trend of our narrators being signposted as untrustworthy from the outset - especially when it comes to their mental state. Whilst Charlie's story isn't one that's explicitly distrustful, it is a reality that's skewed by the main character's trauma early on in his life, the revelation that his aunt was an abuser coming late into the film as a realisation of why Charlie has been struggling in the way he has.

Charlie is an unreliable narrator because he's stuck in a state of repression, not truly knowing or remembering himself - meaning he can't give us an accurate depiction of his life that the film demands until the end of the narrative.

In this case, it's in no way a negative. It works fantastically well to depict what it's like to be a survivor and to come to terms with a shattered life, whether you're aware of it personally or not. His blackouts and holes in his consciousness are indicative of something larger boiling away under the surface, and the movie as a hole a beautiful exploration of being a teenager in tandem with overcoming a terrible past.