WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
First, the Recap:
Being a teenager is widely thought to be at least one of the most challenging times in life. The struggle for making an identity for oneself, beginning to find out who you are and desire to become, as well as simply negotiating the wonderful word that is high school. Then senior year comes along and the future is looming all to real in front of you. And, of course, there’s love. Orlando, Florida-residing senior Quentin (Nat Wolff) has been in love with his neighbor across the street, Margo (Cara Delevigne), since she first moved in when they were younger. Striking up an initial friendship, the years ultimately separate them, even while still living so close.
This changes one night when Margo visits Quentin in the middle of the night and takes him on a bit of a “crusade” to “wrong some rights and right some wrongs”. In this time together, she makes it clear how shallow and “paper” she feels the world is, and after giving Quentin the best night of adventure in his life–she disappears. Believing Margo is meaning for him to find her via “clues” left behind, Quentin gathers his closest friends, Ben (Austin Abrams) and Radar (Justice Smith), as well as Radar’s girlfriend Angela (Jaz Sinclair) and Margo’s best friend Lacey (Halston Sage) and embark on a road trip to find Margo and for Quentin to finally profess the love he has for her. As the journey progresses, the friends all learn more about each other, their plans, dreams, and the value of friendship.
Next. my Mind:
In tackling only his second full length feature, director Jake Schreier most certainly had his work cut out for him in doing this adaption of John Green’s novel after the success of the other recent offering based on Green’s work, last year’s “The Fault In Our Stars”. While both films effectively navigate the realms of teen angst and the concepts of growing up and becoming wiser, “Towns” is a decidedly different approach to characters and story execution, in that rather than facing death via a physical illness, this is more a statement about the death of ones idea of a person, the focus in making them out to be something they’re actually not, and having to deal with finding this out.
This ensemble cast more than covers the entire range of the realities found in teenage life, representing almost every facet and clique in some form between them. Wolff’s lovelorn Quentin is a solid picture of somewhat naïve innocence against Delevigne’s world-wise, rebellious, free-spirited Margo, and the friendship between them is actually quite believably pulled off, a story of opposites attracting and affecting each other in unexpected ways. This also becomes apparent with Abrams’ off-the-wall Ben and Sage’s beauty-who wants-to-be-known-for-her-brains Lacey, which would be a complete mismatch had circumstances not proven otherwise. The overall high school vibe and modern soundtrack pull the film along nicely as we watch this all unfold.
Overall, while this reviewer cannot say “Paper Towns” struck as emotionally poignantly, thematically or otherwise, as “Stars” did, it should not take away from the fact that by this film’s finale, it still DOES hit where it’s intended–the heart.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
