Directed by Jake Schreier
3 Stars
Paper Towns is a movie adaptation of John Green's best-selling novel by the same name. It's a coming-of-age story that follows the main character, Quentin Jacobsen (Nat Wolff). Quentin is a shy high school student who is neighbours with an adventurous, outgoing, popular girl, Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delavnigne). Quentin and Margo were friends as kids, but over time, they lost touch and stopped talking to each other. Quentin has always had a crush on her. One night, Margo ropes Quentin into a night she planned full of pranks on her friends who have wronged her in various ways. They execute the pranks, talk and bond a lot. They plan to see each other the next day at school but Margo unexpectedly goes missing. Quentin and his friends Radar (Justice Smith) and Ben (Austin Abrams) go through clues Margo left behind and go on a quest to find her.
This movie is a fun movie for teens and adults about a couple of teenagers going on an adventure to solve a mystery and find their friend. It is not a bad movie, but I think it misses many underlying themes and deep moments that are in the book. For example, when Quentin and his friends are looking for Margo, they don't really mention that Quentin thinks she may have killed herself, which is one of the reasons why he wants to find her so bad. The movie makes it seem more like they just want to find her because Quentin is in love with her. These more thoughtful moments in the book were probably cut out to make the movie short enough. But the movie does include one main theme well, which is that people aren't other people's perception of them. Overall, I would say that the book is much better than the movie, but the movie isn't too bad. If you want a fun-to-watch and interesting movie, I would recommend this. In conclusion, I would rate it ⅗ stars.
Reviewed by Zahra
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