The new trailer for Paper Towns opens with Quentin, a high school student so ordinary and average that he feels like a median statistical model created by an MIT PhD candidate. But his extremely ordinary life gets thrown into mild disarray when Margo enters his life. Margo, a mysterious neighbor with a need for Quentin’s recently bequeathed minivan, takes him on a dubious venture, ostensibly to prank her ex-boyfriend. In the process, Quentin gains a perspective into his new friend’s discomfort, which stems from her cynical view of their community—“It’s a paper town…paper houses and paper people,” she says—and her desire to live a life that is open to mystery and passion.
Because this is an adaptation of a bestselling novel by John Green (author of The Fault In Our Stars), any blossoming friendship or romance must be complicated with adverse circumstances. And so the chaos introduced to Quentin’s algorithmically averaged life increases when Margot disappears, leaving a breadcrumb trail of clues behind.
How is Quentin changed by Margot and her clues? Where will these clues lead? Will she return, alive and well or be tragically discovered at a grisly crime scene? Is this all one long con to steal Quentin’s sweet minivan? These mysteries will (hopefully) be solved when Paper Towns appears in theaters on July 24.