Cara Delevingne transfers her trademark quirky cool from the catwalk to the cinema screen for her first leading film role in Paper Towns - and her casting is perfect as the free-spirited Florida teenager whose mysterious disappearance sends five of her high-school peers on an epic road trip across the States to find her.
Delevingne’s Margo has apparently left behind enigmatic clues to her whereabouts, which her dorky, hero-worshipping neighbour Quentin (Nat Wolff) is determined to solve with the aid of his chums.
It takes Delevingne’s puckish charisma for us to believe that this oddball bunch would be drawn across the country by Margo’s magnetic pull, yet the mystery is engaging and Quentin and his joshing friends are amiable company en route.
Based on the young-adult novel by The Fault in Our Stars author John Green, this enjoyable teen movie doesn’t dig very deeply into the sadness behind Margo’s flight, and its overall mood is safe rather than edgy - but it does effectively capture that strain of bittersweet yearning and nostalgia peculiar to adolescence.
Certificate 12. Runtime 109 mins. Director Jake Schreier
Paper Towns is available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFGiHm5WMLk
