Paper Towns didn't have a scene where the two main characters made out to encouraging applause in the room where Anne Frank's family were dragged away by the Nazis. That alone makes it infinitely better than the woefully misjudged, highly manipulative, painfully pretentious, yet inexplicably beloved The Fault In Our Stars. Not that the reception to the film this summer would have suggested that. John Green books (and their subsequent movie adaptations) may offer up constant reminders that they're "real", but they're not really any more grounded than any other romantic drama (again, tonguing in Anne Frank's house); what they are essentially doing is taking teenage idealism and trying to present it as insightful. Thankfully, Paper Towns seems to get the ridiculousness of that, going as far as, in its later acts, to admit this is all pretty aimless and even argues that's kinda the whole point of growing up. Maybe the public's obsession with the symbolic desecration of historical memorials meant that this Gone Girl-esque mystery (geeky Quentin reconnects with neighbour Margo, only for her to disappear and him become obsessed with tracking her down) didn't quite sit right, or the lack of the Big C didn't conjure up enough emotion to make people care. Whatever the case, this perfectly amiable movie was totally overlooked; Paper Towns is as twee as you'd expect, but at least it knows it is.
