Review: Paper Towns Movie

Summary: Paper Towns is a story of a boy named Q who falls in love with the girl next door Margo. They were friends as kids but as they grew up they stopped talking. Then one night senior year Margo comes through Q’s window and takes him on an adventure to take revenge on the people who have wronged her. The next day Margo has run away. Q wants to go find her because he thinks he’s in love with her. He follows clues Margo left behind to figure out where she went. Then Q and his friends hop in a van to go get her.

The cast for this movie is perfection. Every actor really embraces the complexity of each of their characters. My favorite casting choice is Cara Delevingne as Margo. I might be a little bias because I’m totally attracted to her, but I also feel like she really captured the essence of Margo Roth Spiegleman. The characters adventurous and wild nature, while also being uncertain and even depressed.

This movie had so many funny moments that made me laugh out loud. The story is fun and exciting at some moments and sweet and sentimental at others. The funny moments completely added to the quality of the film and made it more enjoyable. Also this movie has a great soundtrack that set the mood and enhanced the film.

Lastly, one of my favorite parts was the memorable quotes from the book that I was so glad they included in the movie. There are quotes about taking risks, quotes that make you laugh, and quotes that teach a lesson. To me the most important quote come at the end of the movie:

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.”

This quote speaks volumes to me and perfectly sums up a main theme of the movie so well.

Yes the movie and the book have some differences. I know this upsets some people. But how I see it is that books and movies are different mediums, and that they are trying to accomplish different things. As long as the integrity of the book is intact (aka characters don’t dramatically change personalities and the plot stays the same) it’s acceptable for the movie to make some changes.

So here are the two main changes from the movie and book. Warning this paragraph will contain some spoilers for the book and movie. Just jump to the next paragraph if you would like to avoid them. So the first difference is that in the movie there is no focus on Margo being depressed. Q is not rushing to get to Margo because he’s worried about her killing herself, he’s rushing to get there because his friends want to get back before prom. Which is the second difference, instead of their road trip happening during graduation it happens before prom. I feel like both of these differences are acceptable. The first one is a major change to a character’s personality; however the actress who plays Margo, Cara Delevingne, incorporates the depression into the character. So even though it’s not explicitly in the script, from the actress still portrays that part of Margo. And changing the story to before prom didn’t have much of an impact to me. It didn’t feel like a major difference

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and I love how I left the theatre wanting to be more adventurous and wanting to step out of my comfort zone which I think is important to do.

Stop playing it safe. Wake up, Take risks, and Live.