[yasr_overall_rating]
A young man and his friends embark upon the road trip of their lives to find the missing girl next door.
Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne) is that effortlessly chic and edgy girl that you’ve either wanted to be or be with. She’s daring, funny, smart and with once glance she can make you believe you’re in love with her. Her magnetism sways you into thinking that she knows something about life that you can’t touch, all the mysteries of the world lay hidden between furrowed brows. Quentin (Nat Wolff) is in love with the sphinxlike girl next door. Once close friends, they drifted apart as Margo became all the more daring and mysterious and he held his own on the straight and narrow path, meticulously planned out ahead of him. After a rare and miraculous night of mischief, Margo disappears and sets in motion a quest to find Margo in a paper town.
Cara Delevingne as Margo is near perfection, as she is the quintessential cool girl. Delevingne is both model and actress; her expressions and movements lead the way as her lines are delivered effortlessly. Nat Wolff as Quentin and his best friends Ben (Austin Abrams) and Radar (Justice Smith) are a perfect trio, balancing the perfunctory banalities of high school and comedy. There is infinite teenage wisdom hidden in every scene.
My adolescence was inundated with teen flicks like “American Pie,” “10 Things I Hate About You” and “Jawbreaker,” your typical late 90’s early 00’s fare, where high school kids are fully developed adults walking around the halls in stiletto heels and causing sexual mayhem. To see a teen flick like “Paper Towns” is refreshing. It has all the mystifying charm of “The Virgin Suicides” without the suicidal edge. As with many coming of age/high school flicks there always seems to be an apocalyptic sense of doom that lingers in the air, hazing high school seniors all the way to the climax of graduation and the last summer before the ultimately clichéd “beginning of the rest of your life.” That anxiety is present and packaged perfectly in “Paper Towns.” It brews a particular brand of nostalgia, both hectic and hopeful, that most people, both young and old, can relate to.
“Paper Towns” is equal parts charming coming of age story and myth. Although it maintains a mildly romanticized rendering of high school and the general suburban existence of a teenager, “Paper Towns” doesn’t slump down into a John Hughes teenage romance perfect ending. It rather offers perspective on creating mythical personas as well as breaking them down. No one is ever who they seem to be and no one ever wants to see someone for who they really are. It’s an impossible dilemma. But once the constructs are broken down and eyes are peeled back, the truth is then unveiled, and although a wave of disappointment washes over you, you are better for it. There will always be a Quentin and a Margo at any given time in the world, playing an elaborate game of tag until one finally unmasks the other.
In theaters July 24th
