This article was originally published in the Freshers 2015 print edition of The Linc. If you’re a student and want to get your work in print, send us an email and get involved!
Written by Ben Stockdale
Paper Towns is a film written by John Green, the author behind last years’ madly successful tearjerker The Fault in Our Stars. The film focuses on Quentin (Nat Wolff), who is woken from his sleep by his childhood crush, Margo (Cara Delevingne), for a night of felonies and excitement before she leaves town without warning.
Quentin then follows a trail of vague clues left by mystery-loving Margo, in an attempt to find her so he can proclaim his love for her at last.
The central premise of the film revolves around the relationship between Quentin and Margo; however, the chemistry between Wolff and Delevingne didn’t work for me.
This could be because this is Cara Delevingne’s first feature film, meaning she is still developing as an actress. Perhaps when paired with Nat Wolff they just didn’t have a
natural chemistry. Either way, the film relies on Cara being engaging and
dynamic, and this could have been done more effectively.
Despite the chemistry between the two lead actors being a bit lacklustre, Quentin and his friends made an easily relatable trio with their interactions bringing a lot of quirky humour to the film.
Another highlight was the relationship between Radar (Justice Smith) and Angela (Jaz Sinclair), which was incredibly charming and felt really genuine in a film that struggles with unrealistic storylines and questionable character motivations.
It feels like the film has gone to some effort to be unconventional in its storytelling, yet it’s actually still quite generic and has a lot of clichéd moments. Despite the story being quite implausible and some of the dialogue sounding like it’s straight from a Tumblr GIF, there is just enough indie spirit and charm in the film to ultimately make it worth watching.
Summary: Clichéd but with humour and entertainment. 6/10.