Young 'uns see that reality can fall short

TO hear Quentin Jacobson tell it, Margo Roth Spiegelman is the living embodiment of the perfect female: a miracle and a mystery, merely "the most gorgeous creature God had ever created". Quentin, the teenage narrator of Paper Towns, has had a massive crush on Margo ever since she and her family moved in across the street from him. In almost every other respect though, they have nothing in common. He leads an unremarkable existence while her life has been "a series of epic adventures".

Paper Towns is a coming-of-age tale directed by Jake Schreier and written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber; it is based on the novel by John Green, who was also the author of last year's coming-of-age blockbuster The Fault in Our Stars, about two cancer-stricken teens who find love among the (emotional) ruins. This season's theme: how to reach your potential by breaking out of your comfort zone and grabbing life by the scruff of the neck.

Quentin (Nat Wolff) is a nerdy high school senior whose world doesn't extend beyond the Orlando suburb where he lives, his studies and hanging out with his two best friends Radar (Justice Smith) and Ben (Austin Abrams).

His relationship with Margo (Cara Delevingne) - they were once close bicycle buddies - has been reduced to nods of acknowledgement as they pass each other in the school corridor. Margo's looks, her popularity and her rebellious attitude have elevated her to the social stratosphere at school, while Quentin has stayed somewhere near the bottom rungs.

Everything changes one night, when Margo clambers through his bedroom window and persuades him to drive her on a mission to exact revenge on her boyfriend, who's been cheating on her with her best friend.

Later, as they look out over the town from an office tower, she tells him that Orlando is a paper town because "no one cares about anything that matters", and that the high he felt that evening "is the way you should feel your whole life".

Just as Quentin embraces his newfound confidence, Margo disappears without a trace, leaving him to search for clues as to where she might be. His investigations lead to a map and a paper town in upstate New York - a fictional town name inserted by map-makers to catch map copycats - and he's convinced that Margo is somewhere near there.

Did someone say road trip? With his search for Margo now a near-obsession, Quentin and friends - including Radar's girlfriend Angela (Jaz Sinclair) and Margo's concerned friend Lacey (Halston Sage) - embark on a cross-country quest, hoping to find her and make it back in time for their graduation prom. Of course, not everything goes according to plan.

Paper Towns doesn't break moulds in the young-adult genre, but it does identify Delevingne as perhaps the next breakout star of her generation - just as Shailene Woodley made a splash in The Fault in Our Stars. For Quentin, the moral of the story is clear: reality doesn't always live up to the dream. Meanwhile, there's a great big world out there, waiting to be discovered.

Rating: C