OK, fine—it’s not really a chick flick.  Pero mga 85% ng nanonood ay chicks.  That’s ‘cause it’s based on the book by John Green, author of the YA novel and popular-with-the-chicks flick, The Fault In Our Stars.  In fact, andun din sa Paper Towns si Gus (Ansel Elgort) in a cameo role. 

To be honest, I liked this film better than The Fault In Our Stars.  In TFIOS, there was just so many puns coming from angst coming from the characters’ experiences; death is a difficult subject to tackle, and that fact, of course, came out, no matter how witty or sarcastic Gus’ and Hazel’s lines were.  In Paper Towns, the theme was really about friendship and coming of age, so it wasn’t as ‘heavy’.  Some might say may kababawan ang pelikulang ito—after all, it just shows a teenage boy Quentin (Nat Wolff, TFIOS’ Isaac) with a crush on popular girl Margo (model Cara Delevingne) who dragged him along to do some pranks, whom he runs after (with his friends) when she turns up missing.  But in the end, ang kwento naman was really about how this young person idealized something, in this case, a girl, which turns out not so extraordinary.  What he realized is that his friends, no matter how quirky or crazy, would stay with him all throughout and knock sense into him when he needs it.  At yun ang natutunan ni Q, yung bida:  the real ‘miracle’, the idea that was extraordinary, was his friendship with his two BFFs.  That he should treasure it, because they were all set to go off to college, which meant parang end na rin ng samahan nila as they knew it.

Ganoon naman, di ba?  Minsan lang, there are ideas or people that you set so high up on a pedestal, na pinakaiingatan mo, na laging gusto mong ma-impress.  Then, later you discover na OMG, ang corny pala niya, o he’s not as smart as I thought, o grabe pala ‘to mag-tantrums.  Tapos nagiging totoo na siya sa paningin mo, not anymore as perfect as you originally thought.  So, doon natatapos ang ‘pagsamba’ mo, nagigising ka na sa katotohanan.  Don’t blame it on the person or idea—because you did all the ‘idolizing’.  But along the way, you usually end up neglecting people or parts of your life that had been there for you constantly.  Yes, we can say na ang mga totoong kaibigan ay ‘yung tipong nandiyan pa din kahit anong mangyari, pero mas OK if we don’t take them for granted.  Because when you look back at your own story, you might wish you had given them more parts.

Ayan, #hugot kung #hugot.  ‘Lamoyan.