Paper Towns is the only John Green book I haven’t read. I remember starting the first chapter last year but decided to put it down because I was emotionally exhausted after reading The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska consecutively. I figured I needed a John Green break. So when I decided to check out the film, I had nothing to compare it to and could watch it without any preconceived ideas or expectations.
The film follows Quentin, who helps his childhood friend Margo exact revenge on a friend who betrayed her. The day after their night of mischief, Margo doesn’t show up at school and seemingly disappears without a trace. With only a series of clues left behind, Q, along with his friends, embarks on a road trip to find Margo—the girl he has been in love with for years.
I was actually ecstatic when I found out that Nat Wolff would be headlining Paper Towns because I loved his character in the film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars. He has incredible charisma on screen, and I thought he would be perfect for another young-adult book-to-film adaptation, especially this time in a leading role. Then there was the surprising addition of pseudo-supermodel Cara Delevingne. I’m not exactly a fan of Cara as an actress, although I do love her as a model.
I loved the direction director Jake Schreier (Robot & Frank) was trying to take this film in, but somewhere midway through, I lost the connection with both Cara and Nat—more so with Cara, I think. She’s definitely no Shailene Woodley, or even Kristen Stewart, and at times it felt like she was simply walking through the film as if she were on a runway. Sorry for the comparison, but her performance just felt bland, blank, dull—whatever synonym you want to use. It was disheartening because I didn’t get much from her character beyond her constant insistence on how she felt about everything. At one point, I was practically thinking, Girl, get over it!
Meanwhile, I was fawning all over Nat Wolff because this guy completely outshined everyone in the film, much in the same way Woodley did in The Fault in Our Stars. He brought so much more personality and emotional weight to his character that I found myself far more invested in Q than I ever was in Margo. So, for me, the film was very much a 50/50 experience, largely because of its two main characters.
Sure, Nat and Cara have good chemistry, but their acting abilities were clearly imbalanced. What I probably enjoyed most about the film, though, was its almost magical quality. There’s this subdued, dreamlike ambience hanging over the shots, and I particularly liked the way the characters slowly decipher the mystery surrounding “Paper Towns.” Schreier meticulously creates this sense of mystery and wonder, and there are moments when the film feels genuinely atmospheric.
Unfortunately, aside from that, a lot of it fell flat for me.
This is a teenage movie after all—angsty, idealistic, and, at least for me, a little too contrived. But I can definitely see why it would work for its intended demographic. Maybe I’m simply too far removed from that particular teenage headspace now, but Paper Towns left me appreciating what it was trying to say more than actually feeling what it wanted me to feel.
Director: Jake Schreier
Cast: Nat Wolff, Cara Delevingne, Halston Sage, Austin Abrams, Justice Smith, Jaz Sinclair, Caitlin Carver, Tom Hillmann, Jim Coleman, Ansel Elgort
Rating: 5/10
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