Paper Towns

Seen at the 1930s Majestic Cinema in The Entrance, Central Coast, NSW

Bea says: I was interested in seeing this as I had read and heard that the screen versions of John Green's books were attracting a new, young audience into cinema (The Fault in our Stars), and indeed, of the numbers making up the audience on a chilly off-season weeknight in The Entrance, many were young people in their teens and early twenties.

I wasn't overly impressed with the film however,  The story was rather weak overall I thought, although it did have some nice moments (the road trip sequence is probably the best); the early girl-next-door dynamic is pretty hackneyed, and the "rebellious" teenager the girl next door (Margo Spiegelman, played rather averagely I thought by Carla Delevingne) grows up into is frankly unbelievable.  I did have a moment of feeling rather old when I basically agreed with Margo's mother's assessment of her actions (she's attention seeking and will come back when she runs out of money, or people stop talking about her). Her character is not particularly likeable - the night of taking revenge on people who were in her view somehow involved in her teenage boyfriend's betrayal of her made me feel uneasy actually.  I did not at all like how Margo was being portrayed in the film at that stage, and only began to feel more comfortable when her friends began to develop a more realistic and rounded view of her.

The film is really a coming-of-age tale, mostly of Q, a swotty, earnest young man trying to get into university to study medicine.  I related much more to him than to Margo.  The story's hook or device is to use Margo to introduce Q to a wilder side of his nature, and in searching for her, he finds parts of himself he was previously not aware of, and ultimately comes to value his friendships with other ordinary people all the more.  Other characters in the film go on similar journeys - Radar learns to be open about himself rather than hide, and Lacey finds that who people really are matters much more than how popular they are, or how they look.  These are quite nice messages, and I was much more interested in these characters' developments than I was in the wooden and two-dimensional Margo.

I am aware that the Margo character is basically a device, and is not "real"; but I still felt that the film was trying to focus on her a little too much, particularly as its bankable star, to the detriment of the other characters and storylines.  I may give the book a read...
**1/2

Cecil says: None of the characters really spoke to me, to be honest; not even the straight and boring Q, particularly once he went on that voyage of discovery. Life was really much more ordinary and banal as I reached the end of my school days than anything going on in Paper Towns.

Actually the whole notion of parting from long-held friends and starting new journeys only really kicked in for me as I left university, not school. And of course in 1970s Britain, there was no end-of-school Prom (whereas we did organise a big End of Uni party). That's all changed now and the notion of 'Prom' has made its way across the Atlantic into most UK schools these days to an extent I could never have imagined in my day.

Of course the best ever coming-of-age movie was American Graffiti, made in the 1970s and set in the 1950s. But that had plot, music and cars. It was a fantastic film I could see over and over again.

There was a very middle-American car moment in Paper Towns, when the three boys part and go back to their (very safe and conventional) cars before driving off in different directions. But it had none of the impact of those 1950s car scenes.

Like Bea, I found Margo rather tiresome, and very far from the Robin Williams Dead Poets Society type of character coaxing teenagers out of their shells. She did indeed come across as very egotistical and not someone I'd chase after, however long I'd admired her.

And those last scenes, as Q catches the bus back from New York State to Florida... really! Anybody who has ever taken long-distance buses in the US knows that that would require two or three changes of coach and there is absolutely no way he'd make it back in time to join the Prom fun for the final scenes.

Having said all that, I did enjoy the film and would give it a slightly higher rating than Bea.

***