The 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards were filled as many laughs from the host Andy Samberg as there were shocks from some of the voting. Silver Linings Playbook walked away with four major awards but surprisingly only one of them was from the acting category. Jennifer Lawrence was awarded Best Female Lead for her role in the film but the biggest upset of the night was a welcoming one, John Hawkes for The Sessions beat out Bradley Cooper. The other wins for Silver Linings Playbook were Best Feature, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

As far as my predictions went, I started off strong with five of the first six awards correctly picked. The start of the Spirit Awards themselves did not go as smoothly. The first announced winner was Derek Connolly from Safety Not Guaranteed spent over 5 minutes at the mic before people awkwardly ushered him off the stage. There was little doubt Amour would lose Best International Film and I had a hunch Middle of Nowhere would win the John Cassavetes Award, while The Perks of Being A Wallflower was more of a lucky pick from me. But I expected Beasts of the Southern Wild to win the top prizes of Best Feature and Best Director and it appeared as if the actual winner Silver Linings Playbook felt the same; they kept giving nods to Beasts of the Southern Wild when they were on stage accepting the awards. All in all, I predicted only 7 of the 13 categories correctly, which gives me only a 53% accuracy this year (a far cry from my 69% (or 9 of 13) accuracy last year).

2013 Independent Spirit Award Winners:

(The winners are highlighted in bold red font)

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bernie
Keep The Lights On
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook

Wes Anderson – Moonrise Kingdom
Julia Loktev – The Loneliest Planet
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs – Keep The Lights On
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Fill The Void – Rama Burshtein
Gimme The Loot – Adam Leon
Safety Not Guaranteed – Colin Trevorrow
Sound of My Voice – Zal Batmanglij
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – Stephen Chobsky

Jack Black – Bernie
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
John Hawkes – The Sessions
Thure Lindhart – Keep The Lights On
Matthew McConaughey – Killer Joe
Wendell Pierce – Four

Linda Cardellini – Return
Emayatzy Corinealdi – Middle of Nowhere
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Mary E. Winstead – Smashed

Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike
David Oyelowo – Middle of Nowhere
Michael Pena – End of Watch
Sam Rockwell – Seven Psychopaths
Bruce Willis – Moonrise Kingdom

Rosemarie DeWitt – Your Sister’s Sister
Ann Dowd – Compliance
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Brit Marling – Sound of My Voice
Lorraine Toussaint – Middle of Nowhere

Breakfast With Curtis – Laura Colella
Middle of Nowhere – Ava DuVernay
Mosquita y Mari – Aurora Guerrero
Starlet – Sean Baker
The Color Wheel – Alex Ross Perry

How To Survive A Plague – David France
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present – Matthew Akers
The Central Park Five – Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
The Invisible War – Kirby Dick
The Waiting Room – Peter Nicks

Amour – Michael Haneke
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Rust and Bone – Jacques Audiard
Sister – Ursula Meier
War Witch – Kim Nguyen

Yoni Brook – Valley Of Saints
Lol Crawley – Here
Ben Richardson – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Roman Vasyanov – End of Watch
Robert Yeoman – Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola – Moonrise Kingdom
Zoe Kazan – Ruby Sparks
Martin McDonagh – Seven Psychopaths
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias – Keep The Lights On

Rama Burshtein – Fill The Void
Derek Connolly – Safety Not Guaranteed
Christopher Ford – Robot & Frank
Jonathan Lisecki – Gayby
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack – Celeste and Jesse Forever

We are a mere 36 days until the official winners are announced at the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards, so I will offer my predictions of who the winners will be this year. Last year my predictions were pretty solid, with an roughly 70% accuracy I correctly predicted 9 of the 13 unannounced awards. Unlike last year’s juggernaut The Artist, I believe this year there are two films that could both easily win the top awards. Both Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook stand good chances of being winners, making the predictions more difficult this year. I predict that Beasts of the Southern Wild will win the top two awards while Silver Linings Playbook cleans up the top acting awards. In addition to picking the winners for each category, I explain the reasoning behind my picks in detail under the categories.

Watch IFC on Saturday, February 23rd to see how my predictions hold up.

2013 Independent Spirit Award Predictions:

(My prediction for the winners are highlighted in bold red font)

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bernie
Keep The Lights On
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook

Wes Anderson – Moonrise Kingdom
Julia Loktev – The Loneliest Planet
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs – Keep The Lights On
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Fill The Void – Rama Burshtein
Gimme The Loot – Adam Leon
Safety Not Guaranteed – Colin Trevorrow
Sound of My Voice – Zal Batmanglij
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – Stephen Chobsky

Jack Black – Bernie
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
John Hawkes – The Sessions
Thure Lindhart – Keep The Lights On
Matthew McConaughey – Killer Joe
Wendell Pierce – Four

Linda Cardellini – Return
Emayatzy Corinealdi – Middle of Nowhere
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Mary E. Winstead – Smashed

Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike
David Oyelowo – Middle of Nowhere
Michael Pena – End of Watch
Sam Rockwell – Seven Psychopaths
Bruce Willis – Moonrise Kingdom

Rosemarie DeWitt – Your Sister’s Sister
Ann Dowd – Compliance
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Brit Marling – Sound of My Voice
Lorraine Toussaint – Middle of Nowhere

Breakfast With Curtis – Laura Colella
Middle of Nowhere – Ava DuVernay
Mosquita y Mari – Aurora Guerrero
Starlet – Sean Baker
The Color Wheel – Alex Ross Perry

How To Survive A Plague – David France
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present – Matthew Akers
The Central Park Five – Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
The Invisible War – Kirby Dick
The Waiting Room – Peter Nicks

Amour – Michael Haneke
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Rust and Bone – Jacques Audiard
Sister – Ursula Meier
War Witch – Kim Nguyen

Yoni Brook – Valley Of Saints
Lol Crawley – Here
Ben Richardson – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Roman Vasyanov – End of Watch
Robert Yeoman – Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola – Moonrise Kingdom
Zoe Kazan – Ruby Sparks
Martin McDonagh – Seven Psychopaths
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias – Keep The Lights On

Rama Burshtein – Fill The Void
Derek Connolly – Safety Not Guaranteed
Christopher Ford – Robot & Frank
Jonathan Lisecki – Gayby
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack – Celeste and Jesse Forever

As the argument goes, it is rare to find a film that is better than the novel it is based on. This is simply because the cinematic representation can never quite hold the writers imagination or match the depth and layered details found amongst the printed page. The Perks of Being a Wallflower directed by Stephen Chbosky however holds a defiant advantage in the fact that it was also written by Stephen Chbosky. As a coming-of-age tale the film owes its success to the dazzling reality of the situations as if stolen from the audience’s very own adolescence. It is in these subtle moments that the film comes alive, with the quiet realizations that everything happening on the screen is not just about Chbosky’s characters but all of us, as well.

Charlie (Logan Lerman), the character in question, is a young freshman starting his first year of high school and he narrates us through the story from his perspective partly involved, and partly detached up on the wall as a ‘wallflower’. Obviously a unique person, Charlie at the beginning of the story is something of an introvert without any friends outside his family. However this changes when he meets Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller), two seniors who take an interest in him and show him an alternate life. For the first time ever, Charlie goes to parties, music shows, hangs out with people and most importantly feels noticed, as if he is participating more in life.

The problem with this film is reading a review or hearing about it from someone simply cannot do it justice. That is thanks to countless terrible high school and college set rom-coms, which tarnish the whole subject greatly. The Perks of Being a Wallflower however is different and so should be treated differently. It holds a perfect balance in between a film with no substance and of one entrenched too far in the wrong emotions, tackling deep life issues but with humour sprinkled in the right moments. Underpinning this all is the psychological elements that Charlie and the other characters face stemming from some past traumatic events, which is something that adds character depth. This appeals to a wide audience and is again a reason for the film’s success as many people can connect with the issues on screen, ranging from, paedophilia, domestic abuse, suicide, homophobia, sexual exploration and of course unrequited love. This all becomes obvious between the characters through subtle, shared moments much like in real life and to the audience through the use of dream-like flashbacks, which adds an element of surrealism.

Helping greatly in the film’s success is the outstanding acting talents that shine through the film. Logan Lerman playing Charlie pulled off the awkwardly unique freshman perfectly and set himself out boldly as a new face. Emma Watson playing Sam pushes herself in all the right directions away from previous roles to mature and expand into new realms of cinema. However the main credit must fall to Ezra Miller playing Patrick, very much a dark horse he appears to be doing everything right to progress in the acting world, and he is doing so at an alarming rate. All three of them, brilliantly casted, really do make the film what it is and watching from the audience, you can’t help but think that Logan, Emma and Ezra have been waiting for these roles.

Anyone who watches The Perks of Being a Wallflower without prior knowledge of the story is in for the emotional and strikingly real performance promised, something you will wish could be relived. And likewise anyone who is already a fan of the novel will be happy to see the characters they know and love in a different format, continuing on past the pages onto the screen, as if they truly do mean something.