Caitlin Carver | Through the Shattered Lens

(Hi, everyone! I’ve been cleaning out my DVR and reviewing the films that I’ve recorded. Here’s my final review of the day. I recorded The Rachels off of Lifetime on January 29th!)

I want to tell you about The Rachels but it’s not going to be easy because, at the same time, I don’t want to tell you too much. The Rachels is a whip-smart and wonderfully snarky little satire and, because of the non-linear narrative style that the first half of the film employs, there’s very little I can tell you about the plot without spoiling the movie.

Don’t be put off by its origins as a Lifetime film. Don’t judge the film just because the title was obviously inspired by Heathers. How good is The Rachels? It’s so good that I’m tempted to call it nifty. That’s how good it is.

It tells the story of two teenage girls named Rachel. They’ve been best friends forever. They do the morning announcements together, always ending things by reminding the school, “We’re the Rachels.” Rachel Nelson (Madison Iseman) is blonde and popular, a track star who is loved by everyone. Rachel Richards (Caitlin Carver) is brunette and she’s slightly less popular than Rachel Nelson. Rachel Richards is almost always in the shadow of Rachel Nelson. While Rachel Nelson is praised by her track coach, Rachel Richards is consistently told that she could do better. And then there’s Roxie (Daniela Bobadilla), a photographer who seems to be slightly obsessed with Rachel Nelson but is disliked by Rachel Richards. Roxie claims that she was once one of the Rachels but she is continually told, by one of the Rachels (I can’t reveal which one), that she was never really a Rachel.

At a late night party, one of these three girls will fall off of the roof and plunge to her death, the result of an apparent suicide. The film, in its non-linear fashion, holds off an immediately revealing which one of them fell from the roof and I will do the same. What I can tell you is that the entire school soon becomes a shrine to the dead girl and the two survivors both use her death to their own advantage. Both of them, by linking themselves to the now sainted dead girl, become very different types of celebrities.

It makes for a very sharp satire, one that perfectly skewers today’s culture of instant fame and internet grieving. All three of the main actresses — Maidson Iseman, Caitlin Carver, and Daniela Bobadilla — are perfectly cast and give pitch perfect performances. This is one of those films where no one turns out to be exactly who you thought they would be. Well-written, well-directed, and wonderfully acted, The Rachels keeps you thinking and guessing.

That’s really all I can say about the movie without giving away too much. Keep an eye out for it.

(For the past three weeks, Lisa Marie has been in the process of reviewing 56 back to school films! She’s promised the rest of the TSL staff that this project will finally wrap up by the end of Monday, so that she can devote her time to helping to prepare the site for its annual October horror month! Will she make it or will she fail, lose her administrator privileges, and end up writing listicles for Buzzfeed? Keep reading the site to find out!)

Looking at the film poster above, you could be forgiven for immediately thinking of The Fault In Our Stars. Of course, some of that is because it says, “From the author of The Fault In Our Stars” and because it features half of Nat Wolff’s face. (Wolff had a key supporting role in Fault.) Beyond that, though, the poster feels as if it could have just as easily been used for The Fault In Our Stars. Check out the intensity of the stares. Though we may only see half of their faces, both of the pictured characters appear to be daring the viewer to dismiss their concerns as being mere “teen drama.”

When Paper Towns was released in 2015, it was repeatedly advertised as being the next Fault In Our Stars. Paper Towns does share Fault‘s unapologetic earnestness and, in a few scenes, its sense of inescapable melancholy. (As people get older, they tend to sentimentalize the years that came before and, as a result, they often forget how coming-of-age and intense regret often go hand-in-hand.) But ultimately, though they’re both based on novels by John Green and feature Nat Wolff, Paper Towns tells a very different story from The Fault In Our Stars.

Nat Wolff stars as Quintin, who is better known as Q. Quintin is a student at Jefferson Park High School in Orlando. He’s the epitome of a good kid. He’s shy, he’s polite, and, somewhat inevitably when you consider what is currently valued in American society, he’s not particularly popular at school. He spends most of his time hanging out with his friends, Ben (Austin Abrams) and Radar (Justice Smith). And when he’s not hanging out with them, he’s pining for the most popular girl in school, Margo (Cara Delivingne).

Margo and Quintin have been neighbors since they were children. When Margo’s family first moved in, she and Quintin became close friends but that friendship ended after they came across the body of a man who had committed suicide. Traumatized, Margo drifted away from Quintin. Now, nine years later, they are both seniors in high school. Quintin silently loves Margo. Margo rarely acknowledges his existence…

Or, that is, she doesn’t until the night that she suddenly climbs through Quintin’s bedroom window. She explains that her boyfriend has been cheating on her. She wants revenge on him and all of her friends, none of whom bothered to tell her what was going on. A night of gleeful vandalism follows, ending with a romantic dance.

The next morning, Margo is gone. She’s vanished and no one knows where she has gone. However, Quintin is determined to find her and he is also convinced that she has left him a trail of clues that will lead him to her. When he concludes that she’s gone to upstate New York, he recruits his friends (and one of Margo’s former friends) to go on a road trip with him. Quintin is convinced that Margo will be waiting for him but, as always, the truth is a bit more complex…

While the plot description might make Paper Towns sound like a YA version of Gone Girl, it’s actually an achingly sincere and incredibly likable little film. The entire cast has a good chemistry and their dialogue is clever without sounding artificial. The best thing about Paper Towns is that it serves as a wonderful showcase for Nat Wolff, who is one of the best and most underrated young actors working today. If you watch this film directly after watching Wolff convincingly play a self-destructive sociopath in Palo Alto, you’ll get a hint of Wolff’s range.

Paper Towns won’t make you cry like The Fault In Our Stars did but it’s still a pretty decent film.