Delayed Reaction: Paper Towns

The Pitch: A manic pixie dream girl scavenger hunt.

How I Came Into It: My only experience with John Green before this was the film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars, which gave me a decent template for what to expect: teens, coming of age, some twists on expectations. Unfortunately, the only thing I remember about this movie being released is the morning TV show interview Cara Delevingne did that didn't go well at all.

Why I Saw It: It's impossible to not be sucked in at some level by this story. Nat Wolff is a textbook everyman. If you can't relate to him in some way then you must've not been awake from the age of 14 to 18. It's easy to see how Delevingne could be his dream girl. For someone fairly new to acting (I don't remember her in Anna Karenina, which is her primary credit before this), Delevinge is very good. In fact, the movie's hindered by not having more of her. The chemistry of the road trip group is natural. They play off each other well, even when the script doesn't make it easy to do so. The conversation at the end when Quentin finally finds Margo damn near forgives any of the contrivances leading up to it.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I can't totally place it, but there's no way that this passes the One Big Leap test. There's just too much about this that doesn't feel right. Margo, the myth, simply can't exist. That's the point of the movie. Even the real person Margo is hard to believe though. She's too many things. I don't get how someone that worldly and alternative is also part of a very traditional group of "cool kids". Would she really be dating a jock like that? Do I just not understand the dynamics of the cool cliques in high school? I like the idea of pointing out at the end that manic pixie dream girls don't actually exist, but I think she's either built up too much for the first 90 minutes or not broken down enough in the last ten for that message to work.

I don't know what to make of the structure of the movie. It's broken into three very distinct parts fairly equally: Quentin and Margo's night out, the aftermath of her disappearance, and the road trip. It makes the movie seem a lot longer than it really is. All three parts end up short-changed. I could see an entire movie made about each third. Trying to fit all three in only allowed room for the spine of each story. Quentin and Margo's epic night wasn't all that epic: a couple pranks and a slow dance. The search for clues was an album box and an atlas. The road trip was mostly without incident and rushed the development of characters for the sake of having more characters. It's a very strangely-paced film.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend