Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? No.
Should you watch this for free? OK.
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 108 minutes (~2 hours)
“Paper Towns” is a dramedy based on the teen novel of the same name. It follows the adventures of a lovelorn young teen as he tracks down his missing love. It stars Cara Delevingne (Margo Roth Speigelman), Nat Wolff (Quentin “Q” Jacobsen), Halston Sage (Lacey Pemberton), Austin Abrams (Ben Starling), Justice Smith (Marcus “Radar” Lincoln), and Jaz Sinclair (Angela).
“Paper Towns” held great promise as the trailers painted the picture of a nostalgic town, full of genuine emotion and soul-baring conversations. Unfortunately, the actual product in cinemas had none of the magic that the trailer displayed. While mechanically, there’s nothing wrong with the story, that’s also the issue — that it all feels mechanical. There’s an air of artificiality to the whole movie, which makes it feel like nothing more than a vapid attempt to tap on the teen market.
Highlights
Great soundtrack
“Paper Towns” makes good use of songs at choice moments in the film, although it doesn’t overuse songs with lyrics. The music selection feels appropriate and relevant to the theme, and sounds like the types of albums that teenagers would listen to. This helps build the teenage feel of the movie, cementing it firmly as a young adult type of drama.
Letdowns
Miscast males
The three male leads might all be the same age in real life. Unfortunately, on screen, it doesn’t look the case. Quentin looks like he’s in his 20s, while Ben appears prepubescent. The three cannot believably pass off as all being 18 years of age, which is what the film presents to you. If you can’t suspend disbelief right from the beginning, how will you buy in to the more fictitious portions of the film?
Flimsy motivation for Quentin
There’s virtually no reason for Quentin’s feelings towards Margo. At best, it’s akin to a teen idol crush. At worst, it’s a terrible manifestation of hormonal urges. Yet based on this emotion, he manages to round up a crew to fulfill the premise of the film. It’s difficult to justify Quentin’s actions and emotions, which even Margo points out later in the film. In which case, what is the basis for the entire point of the movie?
Margo has no personality
The female lead is a caricature, not a character. She serves a purpose, rather than being a real person for the other characters to interact with. Even she herself admits it, which makes Margo the worst example of the strawberry generation on film. What makes it worse is that she is the reason that the characters go on their silly quest in the first place, meaning the whole cast is participating in a categorically insane road trip. It says a lot about the characters, of which nothing is positive.
The movie feels pointless
With stakes that are worthless (Margo), the movie becomes an exercise in futility. All that results from the events of the movie is that the characters grow up. This would have happened even if the incidents of the film had not occurred, albeit at a much slower rate, perhaps. This raises the question: what was the point of the whole film in the first place?
“Paper Towns” was an attempt at replicating the success of today’s teen movies. But because it was done without heart, it comes off as a poor facsimile of “A Fault in Our Stars.” You’d be better off just rewatching that film instead.
“Paper Towns” opens in cinemas 23 July, 2015 (Thursday).
This review was also published on Yahoo.
Leave a Reply