Paper Towns is as infantile as it is pointless; a sloppily rendered, paint-by-numbers filmic blunder that celebrates femininity and the free spirit without understanding either. It’s a glossy venture through teenagedom (emphasis on “dumb”) that both takes itself too seriously and is too fantastical and inconsequential to be taken seriously. As such, it simply fails to grasp anything of value, though its fingers remain greedily extended. Though acted with suitable gusto by its young cast, Paper Towns is the movie equivalent of a rambling troglodyte, spouting words and ideas without having much to say at all.

Proof that not all young adult bestsellers translate well to the screen, nor should such an adaptation be attempted, John Green’s third novel must be more successful on the page than it is in film-version, else there is no explaining his acquisition of an award of any variety (his book won the 2009 Edgar Award for best young adult novel.) Because when you get down to it, Paper Towns (the film) is by all accounts a mess.

The story begins with Quentin (Nat Wolff) waxing on miracles. According to Q, everyone gets theirs. Be it a last second tourney-winning jumper or the winning lotto numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42), each individual snowflake is gifted their one special something. For this tightly-schnitzered, straight-A doctor-to-be, said miracle is a lady friend (emphasis on friend) by the name of Margo.

Lead on solely by his flared organ with an expressed interest in the opposite gender, Q’s had eyes for Margo since she moved next door. Just as she hatches plans to infiltrate Sea World – don’t worry about it, she knows a way in – Q schemes his escape from the friendzone. Or so we’re told. In what will become a brutally annoying tendency of the film, we’re told one thing and shown another: Quentin has been in love with Margo since forrrr-eeevvv-ver and yet that “love” is quantified by staring longingly into her window? Teenagers man. Yeesh.

But just as Margo is a free-spirit trying to figure herself out mannnnn, Quentin is a stick in the mud who’s guiding prerogative are “not being arrested” and “being happily married and childrened by 30.”

A bunch of juvenile hooey goes down and bing, bang, boom Q is brought out of his shell by the manipulative boy-tinkering that is Margo in a bind. Swept up in a quest to exact revenge upon her ex-BF and BFFs, Margo and Q roam down Saran-wrapping and Lubriderm-ing their way to justice. As is Paper Town‘s gold standard, there are no consequences for their actions because…dick pics? (Seriously.) Without so much as a goodbye, Margo peaces out, leaving clues to her whereabouts that Q is hot to trot for. Being a teenage boy with nothing better to do than ace pop quizzes, Q – joined by fellow band-buddies Rader (Justice Smith) and Ben (Austin Abrams) and resident hot chick and wronged Margo-friend Lacy (Halston Sage) – races across the country to find his one true love. All before prom.

As I mentioned earlier, not all is wrong in the world of Paper Towns. For the most part, the leads are charming, even if their heads are squarely up their asses whenever they’re forced to make a decision. As Q, Nat Wolf’s similarities to a young Dustin Hoffman extend beyond their self-same brown mops of hair into the realm of idiosyncratic, cripplingly self-conscious nerd-dom. And then, in a blink of an eye, Q drops the character traits that we’ve been lead to believe define him, brushing his hair sideways so that he’s no longer a nerd. In a flash, he’s a hot boy – a “nerd-esque” dreamboat but a teenage-girl dreamboat nonetheless – with a slightly crooked (though still shit-eating) grin. Director Jake Schreier might as well have had him tug off a scrunchie and sideline his spectacles.

Cara Delevingne possess the spore for an intriguing character in Margo but before we ever get to know her – remember, she doesn’t even know herself yet mannnnnn – she’s gone AWOL. From what we’ve gathered, she’s enigmatic because a.) she’s unreliable (and a pretty bad friend) b.) quick to plot revenge and c.) raNdOm cApiTAliZatIOn. As the bulk of the film is spent seeking her out (Where in the World is Margo Spiegelman?), Schreier shifts his focus to explore the notion of people mythologizing each other; of our human tendency to appropriate the misunderstood into the realm of the fantastical. Of our worst tendencies to believe that the unknown is inherently more interesting than the known. Of people recklessly chasing down ideas that didn’t even exist in the first place. Or at least, this is what Schreier wanted to say. While this could prove an interesting premise, the film is not able to communicate these rich thought processes without rubbing your nose in it. Rather, we’re watching a film that screams its morals from the rooftop before bringing the sledgehammer down on our collective heads. And here we are, Saran-wrapped to the seat and forced to endure.

What it boils down to is confused teenagers aren’t inherently deep or interesting. They’re just confused. Watching Paper Towns is being forced to watch the misguided decisions of a confused teenager.

At first, Paper Towns promises an intriguing subversion of the young adult rom-com, providing an aptly enjoyable first act with some solid characterization. But as Schreier and the film itself continue to preach, expectations lead to disappointment and, appropriately so, expectations that the film will round off in some satisfying manner will also lead to disappointment. Those willing to overlook the glaring plot holes (Where are anyone’s parents? Can buses fly? Were there magical gnome condoms out there in the woods? Age gaps anyone?) will find a story that tries to be relatable but is more reliably shrug-worthy than anything else.

CONCLUSION: There’s a germ of an idea in Paper Towns‘ romanticized adolescence but that germ quickly grows into a virus. By the time the third act has rolled along, that virus has metastasized into a full-blown cinematic cancer.