Paper Towns

Plot synopsis:
Quentin's life changed the day Margo Roth Spiegelman moved next door. He considered her his one true love. They were both close in age, they became close friends and did everything together, until one day they discovered a dead body. Apparently, the man couldn't cope with his impending divorce. Quentin didn't flinch, but Margo took it badly. She showed up one day at his window, saying she discovered that the dead man's wife worked at Sea World, and wanted to go out with him to Sea World to solve the mystery. Quentin refused to go as it was 11:00 pm, and they were kids, so she rode her bike there without him. Quentin comments that Margo loved mysteries so much she became one. Her life was a series of epic adventures.We cut to them as teenagers. Margo (Cara Delevingne) was one of the popular kids at high school who did whatever she wanted, Quentin (Nat Wolff) is not, and they aren't really friends after that night in childhood. She went as a groupie for three months with a band among other things.One night, Margo crawls through Quentin's window and asks to borrow his car. Her parents keep their car keys in a safe under their bed every night, with a dog nearby who hates Margo (the dog will bark and wake them up). Since Quentin doesn't have a car, they use his mom's.They head to Costco and buy lots of plastic Saran Wrap, a raw catfish for cooking, Petroleum Jelly, spray paint, a steering wheel lock and Nair. Margo plans to exact revenge on all who have wronged her. Her boyfriend Jase (Griffin Freeman) is cheating with one of her best friends Becca (Caitlin Carver), so they first head to her house. Waiting outside, Margo sees Jase's car, and places the lock on his steering wheel as she knows he never locks the car. She then calls Becca's house and informs her dad that Becca is having sex in his basement. Her dad storms downstairs to discover the two of them in her room. Margo hands Quentin the camera before Jase runs out, and instructs Quentin to take a picture of Jase running naked across the lawn. Jase sees him but continues running. Quentin is scared, as Jase is on the football team and can beat him up, so Margo points out Jase's microscopic penis and says Jase won't beat him up if he threatens to release the photo. They both then run into Becca's room, while Becca is elsewhere, quarreling with her dad. Margo throws a fish in her closet and sprays an M on the wall.The next house they head to is Lacey's (Halston Sage), Margo's best friend. Margo is upset because Lacey knew Jase and Becca were cheating but said nothing. Margo saran-wraps her car, and sprays an M on it.The next house they head to is a guy who told all the girls in 6th grade not to dance with Quentin; this one is for him. She tells him to spray Nair on one of his eyebrows while she locks the door and puts Petroleum Jelly on the handle. As Quentin wipes off the nair and his eyebrow, the guy wakes up. They run out of his house, pulling the door behind them and he is unable to open it as the Jelly on the door makes it hard to unlock.The next place they head to is a business building. Quentin is hesitant to enter as he doesn't want to be caught trespassing because he has his whole life ahead of him; Duke University, med school, kids at age 30 and he looks forward to being happy. She is confused that he will wait until he's 30 until he's happy. She also lets him know that the guards name is Gus. They walk in, and Gus lets them in saying, "Mi casa is su casa". He and Margo appear to know each other well (the night guard appears to be very young.) They go to a conference room over-looking the city. She point at all the buildings and calls it a paper town with paper people, complaining that no one seems to care about the right things. Quentin is quite smitten with her, and they dance to some music before heading back home. After parking the car, Quentin asks Margo if tomorrow things will change between then. She appears to think they will, but the next day she is absent from school.A few days later, a police officer, Margo's parents and his parents all greet him in the dining room asking when was the last time he saw Margo. He tells them Wednesday night, but leaves out specifics, just saying that she climbed through his window to say hi. Margo's parents decline to file a missing persons report because she has run away five times before, and is now 18, free to do whatever she wants. Quentin also comments that every time she leaves, she leaves clues for her loved ones to come find her (mainly her sister.)Quentin is deeply in love with Margo, and longs to solve the mystery. His two friends, Ben and Radar (Austin Abrams and Justice Smith) help him mourn. One day, he notices her shades are down, showing a band on the blinds, which is weird, as all these years her blinds have never been down. The three guys go to Margo's house (her parents aren't home) and bribe her sister with $20 to let them look around. Her room is filled with records. He searches the records for the band on her blinds. He finds the record he is looking for and sees and writing circled Walt Whitman's niece. Then he sees the Walt Whitman book on her desk and takes it home.He spends the next few days reading the book and comes across a line circled- Unscrew the door themselves from their jams. He proceeds to Margo's house and again bribes her sister with $20 and uses a screwdriver to unhinge her doors to find nothing.Later that night, still reading Walt Whitman's book, he notices a small piece of paper in his door hinge with an address written on it. He calls Radar to join him, but Radar tells him no, they can go the next day as he has plans with Angela, his girlfriend.The next day, all three guys head to a shady part of town, going to the address, to find an abandoned building. Quentin hopes Margo is inside. They enter to see a hole in the wall leading to an abandoned store: still no Margo.The next day in school, Jase approaches Quentin with his friends and tries to beat him up, but he shows him the picture and threatens to release it, and Jase and his friends leave him alone. Lacey approaches Quentin and friends, to find out what happened to Margo, as he was with her on her last night in town. He tells Lacey they're trying to find out, but also lets her know Margo is angry that she didn't let her know about Jase and Becca's affair. Lacey claims she had no idea, but that her boyfriend knew, she really seems concerned for Margo and broke up with her boyfriend when she found out. She also lets him know that now she is without prom date and Ben immediately begins flirting with her, she says she'll be at Jase's party later. The boys seem excited and decide to attend a popular party, now that they have dirt on Jase. Quentin is obsessed with Margo's disappearance and decides not to attend.He goes back to the abandoned room and sees Margo has written on the wall "We live in Paper Towns". Confused, he falls asleep and sees Margo approaching him in a red dress begging him to come find her. Quentin is awoken when Radar calls at the party and lets him know that Ben is drunk, and that they need help to get him home. He arrives, hoping to search Jase's room for clues, but Becca and Jase are banging upstairs. He then heads to the bathroom, and mid pee is interrupted by Lacey, who is hiding in the tub. He joins her (platonically) in the tub, and they discuss life. He lets her know that he and his friends are searching for Margo. Lacey says everyone thinks she's just a pretty face, but she is actually going to Dartmouth in the fall. When Jase interrupts, Quentin knows he can now go search his room. He finds an atlas like one in the abandoned store with a page missing.After one friend pukes in the house, they head to the abandoned building. They look through the other atlases and are startled to find that Lacey has followed them, she wants to know what happened to Margo. He finds the missing page and holds it against the light, to see that Margo has made holes in the map, pointing to where she is headed. He hangs up the map and discovers she is headed to New York, and the one friend says that there are so many towns there that they'll never find her. Quentin then instructs him to look for a Paper Town, made up towns on maps that people place to see if anyone infringes their copyright by copying their map without permission. They find one Agloe, New York.MRS (Margo's initials) edits the Wikipedia page and gives it a population of 1. The four agree to leave immediately in order to make it back to prom, but Radar wants to stop to tell his girlfriend Angela goodbye, and she joins them. The five head on a road trip to New York, and one friend, who needs to pee half hour in, is given bottles to pee in and spills it in the car. So they make a six minute stop to buy food, drinks, new clothes and plan out their trip stops in order to make it home in time for prom.At night, Quentin nearly hits a cow, but Ben spins the wheel and averts is, so they skid and decide to stop for the night. Angela has sex with her boyfriend. Ben and Lacey agree to go to prom together.They arrive in Agloe, New York the next day and find the barn, but it's empty. The rest give up and decide to head back for prom, but Quentin doesn't want to go and is angry they don't want to find her. Lacey loves Margo but says Margo would never do the same for her, Ben and Radar just did it to have one last memory and a fun road trip before they graduate. He gives them the keys and tells them hell find another way home.Quentin hitch hikes to town and buys a bus ticket home, but sees Margo walk by. He runs after her and calls her name. She is surprised to see him there; she left clues for him to find to let him know she is okay, not to join her. He says he loves her, and she is surprised, saying everyone likes the idea of her, but no one really likes her. She buys him a drink and explains she wasn't made for town life, and this is the perfect place to lose, and then find herself, in solitude. She planned to disappear after graduation, but Jase, and Becca's cheating speeded it up. She relents, offering to let him join her, but he decides against it. He wants to go to Duke. They hug, and he tells her that her sister misses her. She says they talk everyday on the phone.Quentin heads back in time to join all of his friends at prom, and the five of them dance and enjoy themselves.The film ends with him saying that someone says they saw Margo doing a play on Broadway, another claiming to see her giving surf lessons in Malibu.

Tags: revenge, romantic

Review:
She is defined by her absent gazes into the world, her love for "random capitalization" in her writing because "the rules are so unfair to the letters in the middle of words," and her statements about her town, Orlando, Florida, being a paper town with "paper houses and paper people." She also happens to be the apple of Quentin's (the former "Naked Brothers Band" lead singer Nat Wolff) eye since she moved in his subdivision when they were young; he considers living next to her his sole miracle in life.
Stunned that the love of his life has waltzed through his window for the first time in years, Quentin takes Margo and peels off in his minivan to exact revenge on Margo's cheating boyfriend and her friends who didn't help her in her time of need.Upon having the greatest night of his life, Quentin wakes up the next morning and sees Margo isn't at school that day, and eventually, notices she's missing the entire week.
With that, the three teens, including Margo's best friend Lacey (Halston Sage) and Radar's girlfriend Angela (Jaz Sinclair), try to track down her whereabouts."Paper Towns"'s immediate problem is it's nowhere as intelligent or witty as it thinks it is.
Its themes are all rehashed to the point of breeding contempt and its characters, particularly Margo, are so broadly drawn that they work against the film, which is clearly trying to breathe that fabled freshness into the teen film genre (it always feels like Quentin's going to stop the film with his narration saying the dreaded "this isn't your average teen movie" line).Strangely, though, the most contemptible character throughout this whole film is Margo for more reasons than her empty personality.
Nat Wolff, an actor I've consistently admired for his good-natured, everyboy appearance and personality, does strong work here in that realm and is assisted by capable performers like Smith and Sage (Delevingne would likely be better if she had a character to play)."Paper Towns" is cut from the same cloth as "The Fault in Our Stars" (author John Green, who wrote the book on which this film is based, also wrote that one and Neustadter and Weber also penned that screenplay) in that it tries to take a different direction for its adolescent characters but crumbles under the lackluster deviations from reality it so often takes.
But the story begins in Orlando, Florida.Quentin "Q" Jacobsen (Nat Wolff) fell in love with Margo Roth Spiegelman (model-singer-actress Cara Delevingne) when her family moved in across the street from his.
Q is socially awkward and the opposite of adventurous and hangs out with his two best friends and fellow band students, Ben Starling (Austin Abrams) and Marcus "Radar" Lincoln (Justice Smith).The action really starts one night when Margo crawls in through Q's bedroom window and asks to borrow his car to pull revenge pranks on her cheating boyfriend and others whom she feels have betrayed her.
Both Q and Lacey Pemberton (Halston Sage), Margo's best friend, want to know what happened to Margo, but they haven't a clue yet."Margo always loved mysteries," Q tells us in his brief narration at the beginning of the film.
Through all this, the film omits some of the episodes in the book (as almost all film adaptations have to do), but keeps all the most important plot points (including the ending), as well as the "moral of the story"."Paper Towns" has a worthwhile message, but takes as long to get there as driving from Florida to New York.
Coming on the heels of its commercially-successful predecessor, 'The Fault in Our Stars', PAPER TOWNS is no heavy tearjerker, but it echoes more affectionate and piercing sentiments, with its lighter, minimalist take of its recognizable subjects.The film follows Quentin (Nat Wolff) , or "Q" as he is more popularly called, a highschool boy who has been nursing an unrequited love for the girl living next door, Margo (Cara Delevigne) since childhood.
But the levitating moment would only last overnight, because the next day, the ever mystifying Margo, disappears.Mining on the same overly familiar material that dwells on both coming-of-age and teenage romance territories, PAPER TOWNS pulls off two easily-recognizable efforts: maintaining 'The Fault's charm, while toning down its tragic notions.
It will also sound unforgivable to never pay regard to the film's brilliant screenwriters who manage to cleverly highlight this extremely familiar highschool tale's stronger and more relatable sentiments, genuinely and sincerely enough, to bend fragile emotions with crippling capacity."Q"'s road trip in finding Margo represents a bigger journey with far wider scope and meaning, and it comes across as a process of personal exploration that unknowingly liberates one self, toward finding the deeper sense of their existence.
The movie version feels like it is rushing and plodding at different times to reach its end, not knowing what to use from the more than enough material from the book to tell a tale.The first movie based on a John Green's novel 'The fault in our stars' had a little fantasy about its plot, which made suspension of disbelief happen naturally for the audience to enjoy the story.
I believe once you put your phone away and any distractions and focus on the emotions of the characters in depth you will feel many feelings you have hopefully felt in your lifetime.The movie seems like something teenagers would flock to in high school with their sweethearts on a first date trying to find a romantic movie but someone for an example 25 years of age having experienced all those feelings can hopefully watch the movie and recall memories of love and trying to find your place in life.*(THE GOOD) Casting great, movie pace well kept, no major "now how in the hell would that happen", and ending realistic and honest.*(THE BAD) Nothing, go watch it..
Paper Towns is another coming-of-age story about Quentin and his neighbour Margo and how here mysterious disappearance sends Quentin on a journey to find her through clues she left behind for him.
There's really nothing happening in the movie that makes you really interested in the character's,nor their boring life's.A girl in the bathroom pouting,complaining over people seeing her only for her outer beauty,and thinking all there's to her is she's beautiful.(That's why you are popular honey.Hello Claire from breakfast club)They can't see that she's got a brain.To sum it up.
The high school journey of Quentin (Nat Wolff) and his mysterious neighbour Margo (Cara Delevingne) is an adaptation of the Green novel.
Paper Towns follows Quentin Jacobson (played by Nat Wolff), a high school senior who's had a crush on his beautiful neighbor Margo (played by Cara Develigne) since childhood.
John Green's adaptation of Paper Towns is a really good film that I'm sure that teenage girls will definitely love to watch.
Teaming up with the same screenwriters, Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter, casting Nat Wolff again (although this time as the lead), and hiring a new director, Jake Schreier (Robot and Frank), they had everything in place and ready to adapt Green's 2008 novel, Paper Towns, with the hopes of banking on the author's current fanbase.
Paper Towns is a really good film.Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne star in the book adaptation of a story of childhood best friends, Margo & Quentin who grew apart as they got older, but unusual circumstances gave them one epic night together parading through Florida only to find that the very next day, Margo disappeared.
Radar and Ben get a lot of screen-time and it can take away from the Quentin-Margo relationship a bit, but honestly that's nitpicking, because the way the film ends kind of puts that argument to rest.So whether it was just how funny this film turned out to be or what it represented as a coming of age high school film, Paper Towns is a great film, and one of my favorites of the year so far.
If we talk about the film in general, has nice teachings, characters that become your favorites, but, lacks a good dose of romance *cough* like in the book.
I don t think They had enough time to let things unravel like they did in the book, I mean, of course they couldn't have included every little detail or else the Movie would be way too long.
In a YouTube video which John was in he said 'no one was anxious to pay Sea World for the chance to give them good publicity." We do get some scenes from the book but some charterers were left out of a few scenes.I loved the music that was used and the voice over at the start, I think that younger Quentin and Margo were cute and they acted well.
The guilt and the stars is a successful book in sales worldwide, with the story of Hazel Grace, a girl with cancer who struggled to live because of your cancer and get to know the great love of your life, "Augustus Waters" beautiful and charming Story Read more here in your books John always treats the young love and once again he hits in full in "paper towns".We know Quentin Jacobsen (Nat Wolff), a child who soon begins a love for your Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne) Jacob as it is called by your friends and acquaintances grow next to Margo and lives the antics and crazy things, on a good day he refusing to take her to their "investigations" that for your sadness she doesn't call you more in the future.
After all we are talking about the beauty of Man Delevingne, Jacob's love by Margo distance every day over the years and he ends up living your little world with their friends focusing on studies.He ends up accepting your normal life and routine that lives to spend time trying to forget once and your beloved, until one day, Margo appears in your window and takes you to do nine missions in one night getting even if your ex-boyfriend He spends his best moments throughout your life beside your beloved where he admires the each moment, the next day, Margo and unknown vanishes leaving clues, that Jacob had tried to uncover where your loved one was.Film demonstrates that appearances can be deceiving and a platonic passion and vicious may be surprised, and the maturation of a young if sets of their decisions, and that friends is the source of new energies, which surprises even though with a slight quick passage where proves that J Ohn Green can surprise and even bring more beautiful stories..
The book takes too long trying to figure out the clues and the timing of the road trip and Radar's girlfriend Angela wasn't on the trip which I liked a lot more in the movie when she was.
Paper Towns is a much more enjoyable romp and in many ways a more proficiently made movie than 2014's first big screen John Green adaptation, the highly successful and unworthily praised The Fault in Our Stars.
Perhaps more successfully come to life in book form rather than big screen movie, Green's tale of love, growing up and a mystery that makes very little sense in its solving is enjoyable to a level but the whole thing (at least in Jake Schreier movie) feels a little to self-assured for its own good and despite a winning non-formulaic finale the film doesn't pack an emotional wallop like it so clearly feels as though its bringing.Green also seems to suck people in with dialogue and scenarios that just feel unrealistic, Fault in Our Stars did it in spades and so does Paper Towns, so much so that many aspects of Nat Wolff's Quinten and his quest to find Cara Delevingne's Margo feel utterly fanciful.Wolff and Delevingne (who can hopefully go on with her promise shown here in this year's Suicide Squad) share an interesting chemistry and while their actual screen time together is limited the film's opening half hour or so with them front and centre comes across in an engaging fashion but once Margo does a seemingly planned disappearing act, the films half boiled mystery and musings on growing up yada yada yada start to wear thin and by the time a fairly uninspired road trip happens, the brightness that shone in Paper Towns early quickly peters out into nothing but left over smoke.Winning extra points for trying something different and remaining not entirely predictable, Paper Towns has moments of genuine wit, heart and intrigue but its half-cooked mystery, unrealistic dialogue and inability to say much of true merit mark it down as a teen romance/coming of age adventure that's above average but also far below genre classics.3 Pokémon theme songs out of 5.
The film was outfitted with hilarious and relatable moments from our current or past senior in high school years, the trio itself of Quentin, Ben, and Radar have a certain friendship that the three actors transfer so well to the screen where the cast chemistry is certainly prevalent, and the film ultimately leaves the audience in a feel- good mood, having them want to call up their best friends for a good hangout session.
Overall the cast is very good but there is a weakest link in this for sure, and that is supermodel Cara Delevingne who looks a bit like a evil Emma Watson in this.Now appearances is not that important but it wouldn't have helped if she at least smiled a couple times in the movie or something, she just comes across as a arrogant self-absorbed girl and even a bit narcissistic.That's not exactly the ideal woman you want for a romantic comedy, although I guess this is not your typical rom-com either which is good but I definitely think that tweaking Margo's character and having someone else play her instead would benefited this movie substantially.It's still good, like I said the rest of the cast is good and likable (the ones that are supposed to be) and it's rather hilarious at times but it falls a bit short because of what I just mentioned.Still well worth seeing and the music choices are ace..
Margo sneaked to Quentin's window and asked him to come help her plot her revenge against some people (im not telling, you better watch the movie man!).
What will he find?Paper Towns is from the mind of John Green, who previously gave us The Fault in Our Stars - the movie and the book (both were quite good, though the book far eclipses it as one of those essential books for teenagers and beyond) - and here, from the same writers as the TFiOS and Spectacular Now and other young-love stories, and the quirks and dialog show.
The story was really three-dimensional but the characters slightly more interesting than the usual stereotypes.It was a cool story about a that typical white guy in all the teen comedies who falls for the girl next store who he use to know well as kids but lost track of her as puberty hit and just before high school comes to an end, they reconnect.The twist to this formula is that just when they're starting the re- connection that would lead them down the same road as all the other teen romances, she disappears before that happens, which sends the white guy on a wild goose chase to find her as she left clues to were she is.
With help from a few buddies and some cryptic clues that she left behind, Quentin embarks on an obsessive mission to find the girl who stole his heart and made him feel truly alive.Jake Schreier (Robot & Frank) has taken this next book adaptation from the highly talented writer John Green and even if it may not be as similar as its predecessor, it surely comes off as a mild coming of age drama with a very strong and promising premise that nonetheless pulses with moving and melancholy moments with its compelling cast and chemistry.The way this film gets itself into a carefree manner, rendered so vividly into its furnished characters, lighthearted humor and a strapping chemistry towards each character.
Granted, some of my favorite things in the book are omitted, like Quentin and Margo's SeaWorld detour and Radar's love for Wikipedia parody Omnictionary, but I can live with it, especially considering the ending the film provides is much more satisfying than the novel's abrupt conclusion.
So, let's see if the film lives up to the hype.Paper Towns follows Quentin "Q" Jacobsen as his childhood friend, Margo Roth Spiegelman invites him out for a night of revenge and searching for a meaning to life.
As she says in the movie, she's a paper girl trying to be more than that, and I think it comes through fantastically in her acting.Inevitably, since it is a book to film adaptation, there will be comparisons between the two.
Now this is the kind of romance I truly enjoy watching.Never tiring, with a lot of funny moments and a lot of mystery, this story really gets to make the difference from all those classic happy-ending romances.Cara Delevingne was an excellent choice for Margo, delivering a very good performance, and so was Nat Wolff and the rest of the cast.A genuine film, with unique realism and a tone of sadness that changed the way I see things.I hope we get to see more movies like this coming out in the future.Highly recommended!.
And so, for fans of Cara, they may feel a little short-changed by her sudden lack of screen time, as the rest of the movie is taken up with the rest of the cast's road-trip as they try to solve the mystery of where she went to and why.I think I've probably said enough about the plot, so I won't spoil what happens, only to say that - despite the lack of the 'other half' on the love interest part of the story - there are a few things even a hardened cynic such as myself didn't see coming.