Today’s Prayer Focus

Copyright, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Paper Towns

MPA Rating: PG-13-Rating (MPA)

for some language, drinking, sexuality and partial nudity - all involving teens.

Moral Rating:	not reviewed
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience:	Teens Adults
Genre:	Teen Romance Mystery Drama Adaptation
Length:	1 hr. 49 min.
Year of Release:	2015
USA Release:	July 24, 2015 (wide—3,100+ theaters) DVD: October 20, 2015

Relevant Issues

Teen Qs—Christian Answers® for teenagers

Teens—Have questions? Find answers in our popular TeenQs section. Get answers to your questions about life, dating and much more.

drinking

PURITY—Should I save sex for marriage? Answer

lust and fornication in the Bible

My boyfriend wants to have sex. I don’t want to lose him. What should I do? Answer

How far is too far? What are the guidelines for dating relationships? Answer

SUICIDE—What does the Bible say? Answer

If a Christian commits suicide, will they go to Heaven? Answer

Featuring	Cara Delevingne … Margo Roth Spiegelman Nat Wolff … Quentin Jacobsen Halston Sage … Lacey Pemberton Cara Buono … Connie Jacobsen Caitlin Carver … Becca Arrington Austin Abrams … Ben Starling Justice Smith … Radar Griffin Freeman … Jase Hannah Alligood … Young Margo Jaz Sinclair … Angela Meg Crosbie … Ruthie See all » Madeleine Murden … Young Margo 14 Kaitlyn Ervin … High School Student Mehmet Korhan … Beer Bong Guy Robert Crayton … Bouncer RJ Shearer … Chuck Parsons Josiah Cerio … Young Quentin Graham Hunt … Student Bailey Ward … Party Guest Keya Hamilton … Parent Jim R. Coleman … Detective Warren Tom Hillmann … Mr. Spiegelman Drew Matthews … Gus Cameron Mills … Trick or treater Susan Macke Miller … Mrs. Spiegelman Kendall McIntyre … Young Ben Ryan Boz … Young Quentin 14 Lane Lovegrove … Robert Joyner Farris Boyd … Trick or Treater Ellen Marguerite Cullivan … Jogger Yossie Mulyadi … Check-Out Girl Kelly Borgnis … Teacher Sophia Grillo … Fashionable Girl Bonnie Cole … Neighbor Wing Liu … High School Couple Stephen Mackenzie Brown … Jase's Crew Andrew Raffelson … Driver Christopher Tolleson … Trick or Treater Jim Gann … Neighbor Brent Gribble … Bus passenger Debby Handolescu … Party Teen Cameron Blackwelder … Evil Jester Kid at Door Hayley Joplin … Prom Guest / Student in the hallway Audrey Blackwelder … Theater Guest / Teacher Hannah Hoyt … High School Student Hunter Gray … High School Student Jubal Strube … Drama Student
Director	Jake Schreier — “Robot and Frank” (2012)
Producer	Fox 2000 Pictures Temple Hill Entertainment
Distributor	20th Century Studios, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company

“Get lost. Get found.”

Here’s what the distributor says about their film: “a young man and his friends embark upon the road trip of their lives to find the missing girl next door

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life-dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge-he follows. After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

This movie is an adaption of a novel with the same name.”

Volunteer reviewer needed for this movie

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.

Comments from young people

Neutral—I really enjoyed watching “Paper Towns;” it had a really interesting pot, but the only missing pieces to this movie is the end, cause I am pretty sure I am not the only one who is wondering about what happens to Margo, or what is Q going to do now. So please Wyck Godfrey can you make a part II of “Paper Towns.”
My Ratings: Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 3½

Adolphe Onusumba, age 16 (USA)

Movie Critics

…It’s smarter than it looks. …a surprisingly sweet, sensitively observed movie about recognizably real teens, filled with some natural performances and a script that tries to steer around (or at least speed through) the clichés. …[3]

Stephen Whitty, The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)

…“Paper Towns” unfolds into a solid high school movie… There's an old-fashioned chasteness to their banter — even about sex — that's charming in part because it's so rare in modern movies. It seems unlikely anybody's mom will get angry about “Paper Towns.” …

Rebecca Keegan, Los Angeles Times

…pulses with moving and melancholy moments…

Justin Chang, Variety

…the film occupies a safe and solid middle-class middle ground in teen storyland between crass gross-out comedies and mawkish romance on one side and edgy, exploratory indie fare on the other. The affable sincerity of the cast helps…

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

…pretty absorbing, with some terrific acting and some positive messages, but it has a strong Romantic worldview that sometimes indulges in rebellious teenage behavior, with plenty of foul language and some off-color humor. …

Ted Baehr, Movieguide

…this flick generally glorifies all the possible train-wreck stuff of high school floundering—from drunken house parties to sneaky sexcapades to secret road trips—as the basic building blocks of moving from adolescence to adulthood. …

Bob Hoose, Plugged In

…has something to do with the danger of mythologizing people …This one isn’t a tearjerker—and isn’t likely to be a hit, either. …

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

…Teen escape film fails to simulate novel’s dark, poetic mystery… Fans expecting more than a routine coming-of-age story had better prepare for a paper movie. [2½/4]

Manori Ravindran, The Globe and Mail

…free spirit in patchy drama… Cara Delevingne doesn’t quite nail the spontaneous, centre-of-gravity figure that the movie sells her as. … [3/5]

Jordan Hoffman, The Guardian (UK)

…Appealing cast but subpar story… Lukewarm as a romance, but the charming young cast helps compensate. …

Rafer Guzmán, Long Island Newsday

…pleasant if derivative entertainment… ‘Paper Towns’ is an unmoving, mediocre dramedy… [2/4]

Lou Lumenick, New York Post

…“Paper Towns” gets lost on a trail of clues… makes the parents almost invisible or bit players in their teens’ lives. … [2/4]

Barbara Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PLEASE share your observations and insights to be posted here.