“As you might imagine, we’re firmly in teenage/YA territory here, and if the poster seems somehow reminiscent of last year’s The Fault in Our Stars, that’s because this is also based on a book by the same writer, John Green”. The cast is equally noteworthy.
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Apart from source material written by Green, the throughline from Fault to Towns is Nat Wolff, who gets the deserved promotion from strong supporting actor to leading man. He plays Quentin – Q for short – a smart kid with plans to attend Duke in the fall and a paint-by-numbers outline for the decade after college.
“Love is inspiring”, People quoted the “Suicide Squad” star as saying when reporters asked how her indie rocker girlfriend motivates her.
We’ve seen the elements that make up “Paper Towns” before, but that’s OK. Everyone else fights with Margo for being a brat and Q confronts her for misleading him on the quest (though over milkshakes in a nearby town rather than inside the general store). The next day she disappears. She changes his life.
It is easy to write off “Paper Towns” as cliche or to overlook it considering the sizeable competition from Marvel’s “Ant-Man” and the upcoming “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation”. Feeling defeated, he went on a road trip with his friend Hassan to prove a mathematical theorem he thinks will predict the future of his relationships and finally win girl. He not only goes to the prom but dances at the prom too, and looks like he’s having fun doing it. And when it comes time to move on to the next chapter of his life, Q isn’t stuck in the past anymore, reminiscing about what might have been if only he’d stayed friends with Margo throughout all of high school.
Margo is intensely world-weary with Orlando’s “paper houses and people”, and announces, “I’ve lived here 11 years and I’ve never come across anyone that matters”. By that standard, this is a paper movie. SHOCKER. And that’s why she ran away – to find herself. How does she make a living? Where are their parents?! But, on film, telling a story about a teenager dealing with these issues is a pretty tough thing to do without every major character coming off sounding like some sort of angsty brat.
While Wolff is appealing, Austin Abrams gets the biggest laughs as the diminutive Ben, whose alleged sexual exploits with a girl from Saskatchewan are cheerfully derided by his pals, and Justice Smith is wonderfully likeable as the cerebral Radar.
“Paper Towns” hits US cinemas on Friday. I did miss some of the darker and more complex elements from the book, as the movie cut out a lot of the angst. If you’re not the grab-a-box-of-tissues kind of moviegoer, then Paper Towns might be a lot more enjoyable.
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Quentin isn’t so sure, and soon begins to find clues Margo left behind. Green’s characters have no superpowers, no government they’re rising up against – they’re just trying to get through high school.
