Paper Towns opens with the main character explaining that he believes that every person gets one miracle, and that he’s already found his. For the last eleven years, Quentin (Nat Wolff) has been in love with Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), the girl who moved into the house across the street. They were once friends, but they drifted apart. Margo is a legend in their high school, while Quentin is the type to keep his head down. Then, one night, Margo climbs into Quentin's room and asks him to help her take revenge on her cheating ex-boyfriend and her former friends. Against his better judgment, he goes along with her, and has the best night of his life.
Quentin was hoping to continue whatever happened between them that night, but Margo disappears the very next day. Three days later, it appears that she has officially run away. And while the rest of the people in the town seem content to write it off as just another crazy story about Margo, Quentin discovers that she has left a trail of clues. He becomes convinced that she is sending him a message, and he becomes determined to find her. He and his friends dig into the mystery of Margo Roth Spiegelman, and head off into the unknown to look for her.
The film treads familiar ground. It kind of feels like a John Hughes movie for a new generation, studying the same sort of suburban, middle class teenage existence under the lens of millennial attitudes. It treats teenage angst as high drama, and first love as true romance, all the while understanding that there is a lightness to youth that belies the apparent depth of emotion. The plot that comes along with all this barely works, its finer details too reliant on the permissiveness of the adults that surround the characters. But all in all, the film makes being a teenager seem pretty fun.
The mystery portion of this film doesn’t really pan out. It skips out on too many details, and the clues left behind take too many logical leaps to seriously figure out. And the film conveniently skips out on detailing the relationship the characters have with their parents, who presumably wouldn’t be very okay with their kids taking an impromptu trip to find a girl who ran away from home. But the film does a good job of making this all feel like an adventure, something beyond the everyday milieu of teenage life. Like all the best teenage love stories, this is a story of how one’s first romance is really about stepping out into the unknown, learning that there is something beyond one’s self.
And though the plot relies heavily on contrivances, the trip getting from point to point is largely a pleasure. These kids are probably too articulate to be real, but the film is able to ground them in enough credible language that it works out okay. The likable performances help a lot. Nat Wolff displays admirable vulnerability in this role, making his character feel like open book. Justice Smith and Austin Abrams bounce off Wolff pretty well, their onscreen friendship providing much of the easy appeal of this movie. Cara Delevingne does a fine enough job of playing the dream girl, even though it is the most underwritten part of the film.
Paper Towns doesn’t get very deep. It never really gets past the surface of teenage angst, the dissatisfaction of Margo Ross Spiegelman with her existence never feeling like anything more than lazy solipsism. But the film is smart enough to understand that, and tells its story in such a way that it doesn’t quite lionize the character for being so weirdly angry. It is, instead, a celebration of being young, of being able to do stupid things on a whim. It isn’t the most profound statement, but just like the best of John Hughes, the way the movie says it turns out to be pretty fun.
My Rating:
