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.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2015.
