Paper Towns: Movie Review

Anyone who's really talked with me will know that I fangirl over John Green far too often. There are so many things that he does, and it seems that he does all of those things brilliantly.
Most obviously, there's writing. The man's written five full-length novels, all five of which made the top 35 in this list of the 100 best books for teens. That's some consistent success right there.
Less mentioned but just as important is John's work with his brother Hank on the YouTube channel vlogbrothers, which just so happens to be my favourite channel. Not only do they encourage people to better themselves, they've raised thousands for charity and started vidcon.
All of which is to say that I adore John Green, and I really hoped on his behalf that the movie adaptation of his novel Paper Towns would be great. Let me tell you now; it was.
Upon seeing the trailer, I was worried. The humour looked forced, the character of Ben wasn't how I'd imagined him at all, and Q soundessed the book up. I was wrong.
Paper Towns follows the adventures of Quentin, a senior year high school student, and his neighbour Margo. Q long admired Margo, but never had much to do with her. Until one day, when she shows up at his window in the middle of the night.
Margo takes Quentin out for a wild night of adventure, before mysteriously disappearing the next day. This leaves Q longing for answers, and so he sets off on a chase to find Margo. In doing so, however, he finds much more then he could have bargained for.
Upon seeing the trailer, I was worried. The humour looked forced, the character of Ben wasn't how I'd imagined him at all, and Q sounded frankly bored. Going into it, I was apprehensive that the filmmakers had messed up my favourite John Green novel. There was no need to be.
In The Fault in Our Stars, the audience was left crying. In stark contrast, Paper Towns shined as a feel-good coming of age flick. There was a disappointing six people in the theatre I was in, and yet even that number had the place ringing with laughter.
My favourite thing about the movie would have to be the chemistry between the characters. Remember how earlier I said that I never imagined the character of Ben as he looked in the movie? By the end of the film, I felt like he meshed perfectly with the other two friends. I instantly bought the friendship of the three boys, which is testament to how well they seemed to click.
You may also remember how in the trailer I found the humour rather lacklustre; not so in the full film. The jokes which seemed awkward in the trailer were pulled off effortlessly in the film, earning a few good chuckled from the audience. The atmosphere that the actors really were just a bunch of good friends going on an adventure rubbed off on the audience, and had them laughing as if they were part of the friend group themselves.
I only have one complaint on this movie, which is the ending. Skip the next two paragraphs if you haven't read the book.
The theme of the novel was that we must "imagine people complexly," seeing them as humans just like us even if they seem more then that. Nobody's perfect, and everyone has some of the same feelings.
As well, in the book Margo totally stops Q in his tracks when he does eventually find her. She enforces the above theme of the book by more or less rejecting him, showing the reader that the idealized person Q created in his head wasn't really Margo but a figment of his imagination. Then we have the movie, where we just had to have the hollywood ending where they share a passionate smooch.
As disappointing as that was, the rest of the movie made up for it. Unexpectedly funny, well cast, and overall well-made, this movie will have you smiling for a good ling while. 8.5/10

Thanks for reading,

-Mark