Review: 'Words on Bathroom Walls' is an honest, heartfelt portrayal of a teen's battle with schizophrenia

Though it’s being sold as a young-adult romance — which it is, at times — the teen drama “Words on Bathroom Walls” is more effective as an honest, engaging portrayal of a young man’s struggle with mental illness and finding himself separate from his condition.

Adam (Charlie Plummer) is our hero, a teen who reacts to his parents’ divorce by developing a passion for cooking — and a drive to get into culinary school after high school. But after a freakout in chemistry class, and an accident that gives his best buddy a serious acid burn, Adam is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and everything around him changes.

On the inside, Adam is accompanied by three hallucinatory characters: Zen spirit Rebecca (AnnaSophia Robb), stoner lothario Joaquin (Devon Bostick), and a bat-wielding muscleman called The Bodyguard (Lobo Sebastian), whose appearance usually signals a major attack is coming.

On the outside, Adam’s mom (Molly Parker) and her current boyfriend, Paul (Walton Goggins), have found one last chance for Adam’s academic career: A strict Catholic school, whose principal, Sister Catherine (Beth Grant), informs Adam he has to score highly on his exams and not have any episodes.

Adam, having been subjected to a slew of drug treatments, doesn’t hold out much hope for a new drug he’s given in a clinical trial. But the drug seems to help squelch the voices and allow him to concentrate on his studies — and on Maya (Taylor Russell), a hard-charging classmate who’s bucking to be valedictorian. But when Adam starts feeling the drug’s side effects, including a loss of taste, things get complicated.

The script — written by Nick Naveda, adapted from Julia Walton’s novel — explores the nuts and bolts of mental illness, from the mechanics of treatment to dealing with the reactions of others. Predominantly, it’s about Adam struggling to beat back the dark forces his brain musters against him, while learning that he is more than the sum of his symptoms and treatments.

Director Thor Freudenthal’s past work — “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” the second “Percy Jackson” movie, and journeyman work on several episodes in the “Arrow”-verse — doesn’t give one confidence that he can pull off such tricky material. But Freudenthal acquits himself well, especially in creating visuals to make Adam’s inner torment relatable to the rest of us.

Freudenthal also has attracted a solid cast, with strong support from Parker and Goggins as Adam’s parents, Andy Garcia as a wise priest, and Russell (“Waves”) as a spunky love interest. But mostly it’s young Plummer, cutting through the teen angst to give a performance that’s authentic and touching, who makes “Words on Bathroom Walls” such a lucid, thoughtful movie.

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‘Words on Bathroom Walls’

★★★

Opening Friday, August 21, in many theaters nationwide. Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content involving mental illness, some sexual references, strong language and smoking. Running time: 111 minutes.