Movie Review: Paper Towns

I recently went and saw the movie Paper Towns in the theatre. The movie is based off of a book written by John Green with the same title. I know what you’re thinking: John Green means some romance story about two emotionally damaged teenagers, or something like that. Well, you’re pretty much correct. Having read the book, the movie was alright. It lead away from the book’s story quite often, but made for a good watch if you weren’t constantly saying, “well that’s not how it went in the book,” like me.

The movie starts out with the senior, awkward, and pretty much lost besides following his two best friends, Quinten (played by Nat Wolff) , talking about his long lost childhood best friend, Margo Roth Spiegleman (played by Cara Delevingne). He has always watched her from afar and has yet to mention to her that he is completely and totally enamored by her. Until one night, Margo arrives at his window, just like she used to as a child, with a request to borrow his car. It’s a school night and Quinten, polar opposite to Margo, doesn’t like to take risks. But she convinces him to go on an all night escapade, righting wrongs and wronging rights.

The night turns out to be the adventure of a lifetime and at 4 o’clock in the morning post-adventure, Quinten finds himself even more in love with Margo Roth Spiegleman than he was before. She doesn’t show up the next day to school. Or the next after that. She’s gone missing. Quinten goes on a hunt searching for clues, going as far as a road trip with his four best friends to find her.

Now I won’t spoil the end, you’re probably thinking oh, they find her, he loves her and she loves him, and it’s a beautiful walk off into the sunset kind of ending. Just watch it. I really suggest that you read the book first though. You’ll spend a lot of the movie angry, like I did, because there are small things here and there that are most definitely different in the movie than in the book.

But, in the end, the movie is a good watch. The film includes some newer actors such as, Justice Smith (Radar), Austin Abrams (Ben), and Jaz Sinclair (Angela) , but they seem to do a fine job in completing the scenes I spent hours imagining while I read. While the ending kind of leaves you with angry thoughts and questioning the mind of John Green, overall the movie is definitely worth watching. 7.5/10