While I may be running the risk of courting the wrath of young adult lit lovers everywhere, I am honor bound to be honest in all of my reviews. As such, I must say that I hated, I mean hated Jake Schreier’s Paper Towns. Filled with unrealistic characters, hoary plot points and ridiculous circumstances, this is the sort of film that makes me want to pull an Oedipus and gauge my eyes out with heart pokers, a precaution lest I ever have the misfortune of stumbling across this movie on cable late one night. Adapted from the novel by John Green, the erudite scribe who gave us The Fault in Our Stars, this book was yet another best seller that touched a chord with the young set, prompting critics to exclaim it “fantastic, interesting and unique” (The Guardian) and “fabulous” (The Book Smugglers). In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that I have never read the novel but I think it is safe to say that the film adheres pretty closely the source material or we surely would have seen images of Schreier being burned in effigy by Green’s legions of fans.
Having far better things to do (say, undergoing a root canal without anesthesia) I can safely say I will not be going back to read Green’s novel. I’ve suffered enough already. The story revolves around this sad sack by the name of Quentin (Nat Wolff), a smart enough kid who suffers with low self-esteem on par with the Chicago Cubs. In his senior year at high school, he’s been pining away for the oh-so-mysterious Margo (Cara Delevingne and her werewolf eyebrows), the girl who lives across the street. They were once childhood friends, setting off on adventures, but they’ve since drifted apart. She’s grown up to be a free spirit, adventurous and unafraid to live life to its fullest. She can pick locks, runs away on a whim, reads Walt Whitman, listens to Woody Guthrie and says profound things like “The way you feel tonight is the way you should feel your entire life.” Excuse me, I just tasted a bit of vomit in my mouth…
If someone could please find an 18 year-old woman who does all of these things and has these interests, I would gladly eat a copy of this review in lieu of a plate of crow. People such as Margo do not exist. If they did, I wouldn’t weep for the future as I often do. Nope, she is just a flimsy construct concocted by Green that’s supposed to be seen as edgy. Discerning eyes see her for what she is – trite and insulting.
Within 15 minutes, after the two leads embarked on an evening of impossible pranks and Margo had uttered at least three “deep” statements about living life to the fullest, I was disengaged from this mess of a movie. That Quentin’s buddies were also from central casting (one’s a nerd and the other is perpetually horny and lusts after his friend’s mom) and then embark on an improbable trip from Florida to New York to find the now missing Margo (why couldn’t they let her stay lost?) certainly didn’t help.
While many would like to think that Paper Towns has something important to say about how to live life, the truth of the matter is that its characters and circumstances don’t exist in any reality that I’m aware of. As such, anything they may have to say about real life is as paper-thin as they are.
