Paper Towns review: Memorable for excellent turns from all of its young cast and its wonderful message.
Paper Towns review
From the author of The Fault In Our Stars comes Paper Towns, John Green‘s latest offering that unites the young talents of Nat Wolff, and British model-turned-actress Cara Delevingne. The film is a coming-of-age, slightly off-beat tale that might just be one of the best surprises of the year so far.
The story revolves around meeting that special person; that special someone who one finds, loses and then goes to great lengths to win them back again. That person in this movie is Nat Wolff‘s Quentin, or Q as he is referred to throughout, who goes after his lifelong childhood friend Margot, played by Delevingne, who has disappeared after a very special night that they shared together, in their senior year in high school.
Paper Towns is brought to the screen director Jake Schreier, the man responsible for the really rather good Robot & Frank a few years back. In his first film since then, Schreier delivers a well-paced comedy-drama from Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the two screenwriters who have adapted Green’s source novel. The two previously worked with Green’s The Fault In Our Stars and brought that to the big-screen to huge commercial and critical acclaim. Before that, the duo wrote the excellent (500) Days Of Summer, a film that Paper Towns has more in common with than the popular ‘Fault.’
Paper Towns review
Paper Towns draws on themes of putting people on pedestals, something we were all guilty of in school; comparing social climates and levels of coolness that is rife across the planet even to this day. We all have that girl or boy that we quite liked, but instantly dismissed as we thought we’d be punching above our weight to win them, and Green’s Paper Towns attempts to bring down those very artificial myths. The film is wrought with superb performances, especially the hugely talented Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne who are both really quite strong as the two billed leads. Looking beyond these two, and the film is backed up with quite the talented young cast, notably the great supports from Austin Abrams and Justice Smith as Q’s two best friends Ben and Radar, and also the superb Halston Lacey, who we last saw in 2014’s Bad Neighbours.
The film is thought-provoking, very funny in places, intensely engrossing and hugely impactful. Schreier’s pacey direction and Neustadter and Weber’s excellent script keep the viewer engrossed and make this road the journey one worth taking. Memorable for excellent turns from all of its young cast and its wonderful message, Paper Towns will delight its target teen audience and older cinemagoers alike. It comes highly recommended.
