Paper Towns | Movie Review

“The town was paper but the memories were not”

I think that’s my favourite quote from the book and I’m so happy that it made it into the movie <3

I was so excited to watch this movie because even though I didn’t love the book, I liked it enough and once I gave myself the time to think about it, I decided I really liked it. So, I went to see it without rereading the book because I wanted to enjoy the movie as a separate thing without my obsessive comparing kicking in (hehe).

I loved the movie! NAT WOLF did an amazing job being Quentin, and surprisingly Cara Delevingne did awesome, too. For some reason I was really doubtful, maybe because I never saw her act before (she’s supposedly in Anna Karenina, right?). The whole cast did an amazing job, the soundtrack was ON-POINT (more on that later), it captured the same feeling I got while reading the book.

For those of you who don’t know, Paper Towns is about Quentin who has been in love with Margo ever since she moved in next to him when he was about 13 years old(?). They had been friends then but now, at their senior year in high school, they hardly ever wave to each other. That is until she jumps in his room’s window one night, beckoning him to the best night of his life, only to disappear the next day (because she’s crazy like that, if I do say so myself). She leaves clues and he’s set on following them to find her, doing fun things for the first time of his life. (I suck at synopses, sorry :D).

As I said, the acting was impeccable. I loved Ben in the book and I LOVED  Ben in the movie! Margo’s last day with Q was as magical as it was in the book , I loved seeing Q, Ben and Razor’s friendship (that scene when they were singing Pokemon was THE.BEST.THING.EVER!). I realize I can’t really remember the book, not with any details, so I can’t really judge that as an adaptation for more than that.

One thing, though, that I do remember, is Q not being that nice. I can’t remember specific things that happened but Quentin was a really judgmental person and often wanted people to do things his way. That didn’t show in the movie, not clearly anyway. There’s that scene in a party where Razor blows up in his face about how he must accept people as they are and not try to change them into what he thinks is right(something along that), and in the movie I thought, “Woah, man, what brought all that up?”. His outburst was unjustifiable in the movie, but totally understandable for anyone who read the book.

The Soundtrack!

I listened to snippets of the soundtrack before seeing the movie and tried to think where each of the songs would fit in the story. The songs were really good, the soundtrack had everything from fun songs, to reflecting one, ones with earthly tones (I don’t know how else I could describe that).  It was so PERFECT! I love when a movie gets its soundtrack right because here it took a life of its own. The soundtrack told you what to feel, it got quiet and slow when you’re supposed to be sad, it got jumpy when you’re supposed to be excited, it was all over the place! It’s definitely the best I heard in quite a while and I don’t know what you thought about the movie itself, but you have to give it that!

Finally, I have to talk about that ending. It was a bit different from the book’s and I had zero problems with it, maybe even less than that. I actually, preferred it that way. I don’t know if you caught up on that but I didn’t really like Margo. I had so many problems with her in the book and more than half of them were from that ending. Movie Margo was so much better. I can actually like that person.

Final Rating : 8/10 stars <3