It was probably just a matter of time before John Green and Josh Schwartz became collaborators. Green, whose novels include “Looking for Alaska,” “The Fault in Our Stars,” a…
,” “The Fault in Our Stars,” and “Paper Towns,” has become known for writing teenagers filled with so much restlessness and existential melancholy that they can hardly stand it. Schwartz, whose shows include “The O.C.” and “Gossip Girl,” has built a television brand based on brooding teenagers who wish they could skip straight to adulthood. Both their characters tend to be precocious and wild-spirited, determined to live “a more-than-minor life.
Teenagers lose their virginity to an acoustic cover of “Milkshake” and share cigarettes on abandoned bridges. It feels like a fantasy a kid like Miles might dream up, even though Miles quickly falls in with a group of like-minded kids — the enigmatic Alaska , the self-serious Colonel , and the matter of fact Takumi — who love nothing more than to quote literature and try to one-up each other’s wits. As a recovering pretentious teenager, I sympathize — but I also know exactly how exhausting it is both to keep up such a facade and to be anyone who has to be around it.
The biggest success “Looking for Alaska” achieves is in shading out its secondary characters. Ron Cephas-Jones as Miles’ favorite teacher makes a potentially obscure character tangible, while Timothy Simons as the blustery principal finds ways to let his genuine empathy come through. Lee makes the most of his limited screentime, as does Sofia Vassilieva as Miles’ tertiary crush turned co-conspirator.
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