Thoughts on the Paper Towns film

I’m going to talk freely about the film and book, so spoiler alert! (Of course, if you haven’t read the book or seen the film, this post isn’t going to mean anything to you.)

• I enjoy when movies start by lifting lines from the novel. It makes me feel like I’m psychic.
• Nat Wolff is cute. He is also six years younger than me, which makes me feel positively elderly.
• There is something about Cara Delevingne. I was never convinced on the eyebrows, but since I watched her interview on Graham Norton, where she beatboxes and doesn’t take herself too seriously, I think she’s awesome. The eyebrows too.
• Note that applies to both book and film: I really thought Margo’s random capitalisation would be spelling something out.
• There are some beautiful people in this film. I know the popular kids in American teen movies are generally so because they are good-looking, but Jase, Becca and Lacey are ridiculously attractive. Halston Sage is like a cross between Rachel McAdams and Amber Heard. I spent ages wondering what films I’d seen her in, just because she reminded me of them.
• I love a good bromance. The three main guys, Quentin, Ben and Radar, are so cute together, and their friendship really came to life in the film. That moment when they started singing the Pokemon theme was the funniest bit of the movie, hands down.
• I enjoyed the cameo from Ansel Elgort. It’s like Knocked Up, etc – looks like it’s going to be the same crowd popping up in all the John Green movies! (Assuming they’re just making their way through his books.)
• I was glad Quentin in the film wasn’t as pathetic as he was in the books – until he blew up at his friends, that is. That was awkward.
• I love the sad, realistic disillusionment of it all. ‘What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.’ (It’s not unhappy, though.)
• I felt a little bit old. When I realised I’m almost a decade past all the high school drama, I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Criticism: I liked how important the theme of leaving was in the book. It’s one of the main points, and the film kind of missed it. What The Fault in Our Stars film did so well was including the very quotable parts of John Green’s writing. As I said before, there were some lines lifted from Paper Towns, but I didn’t hear one which I thought was guaranteed: “It is so hard to leave – until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.” (Correct me if I’m wrong.)

Good point: The ending of the film was better. Gasp, blasphemy, yes, I said it! The major problem I had with the book was the fact that they all missed their high school graduation. This might not seem like a big deal, and you could argue that no one – students or parents – really enjoys graduation, but I am the kind of conventional person who would never dream of missing an event like this. The fact that Quentin and three of his friends just skip it really bugged me. Although that showed the depth of their friendship, I always felt that the emphasis was too much on his crush. So I’m glad that the film placed the importance on his friendships and gave significance to those moments you never get back – even if they swapped graduation for prom…