Rating: It may not have been the worst thing I saw last year, but The Fault In Our Stars was certainly my most aggravating film of 2014. A sickly teenage romance that used the Big C to draw emotion from a narcissistic story that had none, it presented hormonal issues with such sincerity that it genuinely had the films cancer-ridden couple disrespectfully made-out in Anne Franks house to rapturous applause (seriously - what the f*ck was up with that?). What really stuck with me most was its horrible, false moral. The film set itself up as showing real love, not the fantastical true love that movies sell us, yet spent its entire runtime doing just the opposite - the concluding sentiment was something along the lines of you cant always find love but you probably always will. Things don't look to be much better with Paper Towns, an adaptation of one of Stars author John Greens earlier novels. The film opens with its hero musing that everyones life has a miracle that changes or otherwise defines it forever, quickly setting up that we're in the same world of teenage cod philosophy presented as genuine life ethics. You lost me at hello. Idealism has its place (heck, for all my written negativity Im actually a pretty optimistic person), but when its so ridiculously earnest and trumpeted in place of anything rational it can make a film sappy and unbelievable. And thats exactly what it seems like weve got here. Nat Wolff (who played the blind kid in Stars) is Quentin (known to his friends obnoxiously as Q), whose self-proclaimed miracle is Margo (Cara Delevingne - fine, but not in it enough to really comment on), his neighbour who he long ago drifted away from. Then, out of nowhere, she turns up to go on an evening of revenge pranks against her bitchy friends and ex-boyfriend and bonding ensues. Now, oddly enough, heres where Paper Towns first offers up something more weighty than the entirety of The Fault In Our Stars. The revenge is petty, but how its framed is incredibly real; that ideal of reuniting with a former friend for one last hurrah, with the spectre of the lost years shadowing you is a potent one, and through this well done sequence (the atmosphere of the suburbs is clean but accurate) the film begins to feel like it has a ring of truth to it. Sadly, we're soon back to normal. The morning after Margo disappears as she apparently always does and all the dreaming and self-importance returns, albeit with a mystery to solve and a now-lovestruck protagonist. In all fairness, Wolffs solid as the guy whos neither popular or uncool through all this, but as we go from bunking off school to gatecrashing a party to an impromptu road trip it feels like all ingenuity has been lost. This is a high school "Best Of", trotting out cliches while trying to present them in a novel way. Because of this the middle stretch is incredibly arduous, if still light enough to just sit back and watch. Thankfully there's nothing quite as intrinsically offensive as Stars make-out session, although it does still have a skin-crawling scene that makes you want to storm out - a cameo from one of the previous films actors who gurns at the screen and reminds you why you were so apprehensive about this new movie in the first place. But then it comes. The kicker. Paper Towns takes a very roundabout way to get to it, but all that gumbo about miracles and love is shown for the idealistic ridiculousness it is. And all those high school cliches? They were kinda the point all along. Paper Towns is ultimately revealed as an astute film. It's a coming-of-age tale from the point of view of a character who doesnt realise hes telling a coming-of-age tale, with more smarts than youd expect from The Fault In Our Stars connection and a message that's very healthy for the predominantly young adult audience (but also has some universal applications). Sadly, its still surrounded by silly ideas and the whole thing sits in that mainstream-indie world of acoustic songs and wistful voice overs, meaning for all its eventual good stuff, it never rises above the mid-level. But hey, if Greens going to become a pensive teenage version of Nicholas Sparks, I can just about stomach that. Just keep holding off on the holocaust desecration. Have you seen Paper Towns? What did you make of it? Share your thoughts down in the comments.
