Paper Towns review: Cara Delevingne is a Manic Pixie Green Girl

Director: Jake Schreier; Screenwriters: Scott Neustadter, Michael H Weber; Starring: Cara Delevingne, Nat Wolff, Halston Sage, Austin Abrams, Justice Smith, Jaz Sinclair; Running time: 116 mins; Certificate: 12A

After the box office success of The Fault in Our Stars, John Green's back catalogue is now Hollywood hot property with the film rights to his hugely popular novels getting snapped up in a flash. Paper Towns is the latest Green book to get the big street treatment, bringing back Fault screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber to work their magic on the page-to-screen translation.

Unfortunately, lightning doesn't strike twice as Paper Towns is a flat, tepid coming-of-ager that lacks the tear-jerking drama or engaging lead performances from the Green predecessor. The story revolves around Quentin "Q" Jacobsen (Nat Wolff) and his relationship with Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), the beguiling next door neighbour who one day vanishes without trace leaving a set of elaborate clues leading to her location.

Both Wolff and Delevingne make a good fist of their quasi-romance, but fall short of matching the tangible spark of Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort. Both Q and Margo, however, come across as sketches of people, flimsy archetypes that never quite feel three-dimensional. The stakes are never that high for them, and it's tough to care when they're trapped in such a middling movie.

When films like The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl are finding fresh and interesting ways to illuminate teen life, Paper Towns just feels like one big ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Paper Towns is keenly aware of the lazy Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, and takes a swing at dismantling the notion through Margo (let's call her a Manic Pixie Green Girl). That's admirable, but it ultimately fails to deliver on this promise - Margo remains the idealised romantic fantasy Q believes will fulfil him, and a final act sidestep away from the expected romantic resolution isn't enough to absolve it from its MPDG sins.

Outside of this, the film is generally something of a jumbled mess. Director Jake Schreier throws together about four wildly different films at the screen and can't blend them into a cohesive whole. There's a bit that's a one-wild-night adventure ala Scorsese's After Hours, a strong teen romance thread, an extended road movie and head-scratching follow-the-clues mystery. Only the road trip finds any resonance, giving Q and his wise-cracking buddies the space to develop and cement their bond. That Margo is absent from all of this only seeks to underline her paper-thin, kooky dream girl characterisation.

Delevingne's Margo lingers on Q's mind long she vanishes, but the same can't be said for Paper Towns itself. Despite brief flickers of a pulse (and an on-trend soundtrack), the whole thing just passes you by. When films like The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl are finding fresh and interesting ways to illuminate teen life, Paper Towns just feels like one big ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Simon Reynolds

Movies Editor 

Simon has worked as a journalist for more than a decade, writing on staff and freelance for Hearst, Dennis, Future and Autovia titles before joining Cision in 2022.