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"Maybe all the strings inside of him broke."

Walking into the cinema... John Green is the author for this teen drama. Can this film rise above the typical coming of age films?

Overall rating: 3.5 stars Cinematic value: 4 stars Big Questions value: 3 stars

Coming of age films are not new to the cinematic landscape, but Hollywood manages to propagate a new batch for each generation. Every once and a while, one stands out from the rest. From Rebel Without a Cause to Say Anything to Breakfast Club, this genre has provided positive memories and the lines that resonate throughout our younger years. Paper Towns and author John Green have struck this cord and provide a voice for this generation. The high school journey of Quentin (Nat Wolff) and his mysterious neighbour Margo (Cara Delevingne) is an adaptation of the Green novel. Quentin and Margo are friends throughout their childhood but have grown apart over the years. Then on a fateful night during their last year of high school, Margo asks Quentin for his help on a mission of revenge against friends who have done her wrong. The midnight escapade becomes a life-changing event for Quentin and he begins to pine after Margo again, then she mysteriously disappears. Family and friends want to know where she went and the mystery deepens as Quentin finds clues about her whereabouts that Margo left behind. He recruits his band of friends to take the road trip of a life time to find this teenage runaway. Throughout the life-transitory road trip, Quentin finds out more about himself, his relationships with his friends and what to do with his misplaced love of the mysterious Margo.

Throughout the opening moments of Paper Towns it feels like it was going down the predictable coming of age narrative. Boy meets girl, girl lives across the street, girl lives an adventurous life and boy pines after her from a distance. Quickly, director Jake Schreier (Robot and Frank) pulls the story out of the hormonal malaise and into the kaleidoscope of different expectations. His lead characters provide an unexpected depth. Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne were perfectly cast in this teen mystery. Wolff proves to have a John Cusack (Say Anything) quality that makes him appealing as the average boy that proves cool in the end, while Delevingne provides enough smouldering excitement to make her worth this young man's pursuit. They are surrounded by a wonderful cast of characters that compliment the comedic dialogue and the contemplative moments of the script. This is where the film differentiates itself within this genre. Even within the stereotypical trappings of the party scene, suggested teen sex and proverbial geek trio, the writing lifts the story line out of the post-pubescent mire. It may seem unrealistic to think that teens could speak at the depth that they do in Paper Towns, but the characters make these lines plausible and accessible. There is a maturity with a twist of hormonal angst that gives this story the necessary edge it needs. Also, the conclusion adds the unique twist that provides a surprising satisfaction to the adventure.

In the realm of teen dramas, Paper Towns does provide a new perspective on a generation, but if there are any difficulties with the film it was in the lack of parental involvement. In the typical American high-school scenarios, the lack of representation by the parents in the film does leave a hole in the narrative. The only people who seem to speak into the lives of these kids are other kids. This might be an insight on the lives of families today or a warning signal for parents to get more involved in the lives of their children. Regardless of the message that is trying to convey, the lack of any adult wisdom does leave a void in this engaging script. Paper Towns is an entertaining film that provides an opportunity for parental dialogue with their teens on many of the transitional issues of their lives.

Leaving the cinema: Paper Towns was a pleasant surprise. It does provide a new generation a cinematic voice and opens the door to some great topics of discussion for families.

Reel Dialogue: What are the bigger questions to consider from this film? 1. What is sacrificial love? (John 15:13, Ephesians 5:25) 2. Is life mysterious? (Colossians 2:1-3, Matthew 13:11-13) 3. Does God care about my dreams? (Jeremiah 29:11, Proverbs 16:3)

Written by Russell Matthews based on a five star rating system @ Russelling Reviews #russellingreviews #papertownsmovie

Labels: Cara Delevingne Coming of Age film Do we need another coming of age film Halston Sage high school Jake Schreier John David John Green Nat Wolff puberty The Fault in my stars

Maybe I'm getting old. These over-serious, platitude-filled teen dramas used to only mildly annoy me. Now, with Paper Towns, I feel myself getting irrationally angry at its desperate plea to be this generation's The Breakfast Club. From where is that resentment coming? Maybe it's that I'm a 30-year-old married-father who's not meant to like this movie. Maybe it's that I'm coming off the high of the teen drama Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Whatever it is, Paper Towns irritated much more than it charmed. The premise has potential: nerd spends one magically frivolous night with the enigmatic girl of his dreams, Margot, before she inexplicably disappears. Instead of being unique, stylish, or progressive, it becomes the lament of the rich-white-teen and the manic pixie dream girl. Our "hero" is drawn to her magnetic mystery, but that appeal never reaches the audience. At times, she represents an idea more than a character, but mostly she's an unbearably selfish, manipulative shrew, using her womanly wiles to get whatever she needs. When she's off-screen, the interplay between the friends is watchable, but her bothersome presence is never far away. Worst yet, in the end PT never takes a stance on Margot, like the movie is trying to have its cake and eat it too. Stylistically, the movie is forcefully quirky, annoyingly cutesy, and boasts a soundtrack that's like someone pushed the "hipster" button on a Casio Keyboard. We can only blame director Schreier, whose previous film was the under-seen Robot and Frank. Just stay home and watch that, a story about a machine with more humanity than anyone in PT.

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person."

Thanks to the worldwide success of The Fault in Our Stars which was adapted from John Green's 2012 novel, the producers have decided to adapt some of his earlier work as well. Teaming up with the same screenwriters, Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter, casting Nat Wolff again (although this time as the lead), and hiring a new director, Jake Schreier (Robot and Frank), they had everything in place and ready to adapt Green's 2008 novel, Paper Towns, with the hopes of banking on the author's current fanbase. Although Paper Towns is similarly aimed towards a teen audience, it is very different from The Fault in Our Stars. It's a coming of age story that includes some mystery elements and ends up turning into a road trip movie. So despite following certain generic conventions in the teen genre it does manage to mix things up a bit and that was something I enjoyed. Everything else about Paper Towns including its characters are pretty familiar.

The film begins as a typical boy becomes infatuated with girl story, but it soon develops into much more than that. In Paper Towns this boy is Quentin (Nat Wolff) and the girl next door he falls for is Margo (Cara Delevinge). They shared a friendly past, the two hung out together as kids, but when they became older Margo's adventurous and wild behavior didn't go along with Quentin's much risk free and calm demeanor. During their senior year of High School, Margo was on her way to being the prom queen, while he was just the kids that went unnoticed. His two best friends, Radar (Justice Smith) and Ben (Austin Abrams), were aware of his obsession over her, but he never acted upon it. One night, Margo climbs through his window using her ninja skills as she used to when they were kids, and asks him to join her on one last mission. Apparently her boyfriend has been cheating on her with her best friend and she wants to get some payback. She asks him to drive her around on his mother's minivan and after the successful mission Quentin admits never having felt so much fun before. The next day, hopeful to resume his new found friendship with Margo he discovers that she has gone missing, but she has left some clues behind for him. With the help of Radar and Ben the three begin to try to solve the mystery of Margo's disappearance. Lacey (Halston Sage), one of Margo's closest friends, also decides to join the kids in trying to find her since they seem to be the only ones worried about her.

Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter are definitely the two screenwriters you want to hire for adapting teen based novels. This is perhaps their weakest effort, but it still stands above most other teen rom-coms. 500 Days of Summer and The Spectacular Now were both very well written screenplays with interesting characters and relationships, while The Fault in Our Stars banked on the the strong chemistry between Woodley and Elgort. Wolff in that film delivered most of the comedic scenes, but here he downplays his character and lets Abrams deliver most of the funny quirky scenes. Delevinge embodies her wild character pretty well, but considering she is missing throughout most of the movie she doesn't get much screen time. That is what makes Paper Towns such a rare teen romance because the girl is missing throughout most of the story and the focus is on Quentin's quest to find her. It's more about idealizing the other person and discovering that in reality they are simply a person. The mystery and the road trip is what makes this film stand out from other films in the genre and it makes the ride all that more enjoyable, but when compared to other coming of age films it probably ranks in the middle. The film shares some similarities with The Girl Next Door, which was a film I enjoyed a lot more probably because I was younger when I saw it. Paper Towns is a film for teens and if you're not in that target audience you might find it a bit difficult to enjoy. There is one scene in the movie that reminded me of this when during a cameo all the teen girls in the audience sighed at the sight of him.

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Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK)

Rating: 3.4/5 stars

"Paper Towns" isn't as deep or moving as it wants to be, yet it's still earnest, well-acted, and thoughtful enough to earn a place in the hearts of teen filmgoers of all ages while providing a breezy, light-hearted nostalgic trip for adult viewers. Unlike "The Fault in Our Stars" (the first, big-screen John Green adaptation), the overall mood here is safe rather than edgy, but what it does do very effectively is capture a particular quality of adolescent yearning.

"Paper Towns" follows the familiar story of the wannabe high- schooler who meets a dreamy girl and everything falls into place. Trying to subvert this stereotypical storyline, the film neatly weaves themes of loneliness, fear, depression, and anxiety into the plot. The film takes a lot of the original spirit of the novel while subverting the story, taking out all the meandering teenage angst and replacing it with a fun, understated film.

It's eventually a bittersweet teen film with much to offer even those of us who have, in theory, grown up, although it never quite reaches its potential of a remarkable coming-of-age drama.

"Paper Towns" is that kid in the lunchroom who acts different and seems cool but it isn't until you talk to him that you realize he adheres to all the social conventions and routines of life that you thought he was rebelling against. It's the kind of film that feels like it was written by an adolescent girl cherrypicking reblogged Tumblr quotes from her wall to suffice as the theme for the film. It's the kind of film you'll love if you find the idea of "getting lost to find yourself" a profound concept.

"Paper Towns," finally, is the kind of film where the love interest is named Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), whose vacuous personality is mistaken for mystery and enigma. She is defined by her absent gazes into the world, her love for "random capitalization" in her writing because "the rules are so unfair to the letters in the middle of words," and her statements about her town, Orlando, Florida, being a paper town with "paper houses and paper people."

She also happens to be the apple of Quentin's (the former "Naked Brothers Band" lead singer Nat Wolff) eye since she moved in his subdivision when they were young; he considers living next to her his sole miracle in life. However, the two have significantly drifted since their youthful days of innocence, until one night when Margo climbs into his window and says that she has nine things to do that night and needs a getaway driver. Stunned that the love of his life has waltzed through his window for the first time in years, Quentin takes Margo and peels off in his minivan to exact revenge on Margo's cheating boyfriend and her friends who didn't help her in her time of need.

Upon having the greatest night of his life, Quentin wakes up the next morning and sees Margo isn't at school that day, and eventually, notices she's missing the entire week. Her parents aren't concerned, for Margo does this a lot, but Quentin and his friends - the incessant Ben (Austin Abrams) and the geeky "Radar" (Justice Smith) - begin to uncover clues as to why Margo may have disappeared and where to. With that, the three teens, including Margo's best friend Lacey (Halston Sage) and Radar's girlfriend Angela (Jaz Sinclair), try to track down her whereabouts.

"Paper Towns"'s immediate problem is it's nowhere as intelligent or witty as it thinks it is. Its themes are all rehashed to the point of breeding contempt and its characters, particularly Margo, are so broadly drawn that they work against the film, which is clearly trying to breathe that fabled freshness into the teen film genre (it always feels like Quentin's going to stop the film with his narration saying the dreaded "this isn't your average teen movie" line).

Strangely, though, the most contemptible character throughout this whole film is Margo for more reasons than her empty personality. She's the kind of person who thinks it's okay to drop her friends and family without giving them any inkling as to what's wrong with her because she's trying to find herself. Finally, when somebody does something for her, particularly Quentin, she takes it with a grain of salt and goes about selfishly trying to advance herself rather than consider what she means to others. She's on the verge of growing up and being Amy Schumer's Amy character from "Trainwreck," a contemptible, lost soul who takes advantage of people she meets.

Furthermore, the humor of "Paper Towns" is another thing that's frustrating. One moment, the film is trying to wow you with a "deep" dialogue about what lies beneath the surface of people, and the next, a character accidentally spills a can in which he urinated into all over himself and his friends. Once more, this is a film that's trying to be one thing but can't escape what it ultimately is: trite, frequently immature, and mostly empty exercise that has nothing revolutionary to say despite thinking it does.

However, don't fault the cast here, for they clearly give it their best shot. Their energy and charisma bring to life more than writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (who wrote "The Spectacular Now," a film you should see instead of this one) do. Nat Wolff, an actor I've consistently admired for his good-natured, everyboy appearance and personality, does strong work here in that realm and is assisted by capable performers like Smith and Sage (Delevingne would likely be better if she had a character to play).

"Paper Towns" is cut from the same cloth as "The Fault in Our Stars" (author John Green, who wrote the book on which this film is based, also wrote that one and Neustadter and Weber also penned that screenplay) in that it tries to take a different direction for its adolescent characters but crumbles under the lackluster deviations from reality it so often takes. On top of that, unlike "The Fault in Our Stars," which was burdened by sentimentality and cringeworthy attempts at a perceived coolness, "Paper Towns" winds up being precisely what it didn't want to be - a paper film.