The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
Directed by Josh Boone
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a patient named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.
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30 films that influenced The Fault in Our Stars
What critics say influenced The Fault in Our Stars
Green’s romantic, heart-aching, heartbreaking, poignant melodrama of two kids on a “star-crossed” course with fate has teen-DNA strands stretching all the way back to antiquity, running from Romeo and Juliet through the classic 1970s tear-jerker Love Story .
Elgort is boyishly handsome (in a way that’s distractingly reminiscent of " Love Story "-era Ryan O’Neal, actually) but never quite radiates the charisma required to keep up with Woodley.
The good old-fashioned tearjerker is a Hollywood tradition stretching past the tear-soaked cheekbones of Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment to Ali McGraw in Love Story and all the way back to the flickering silent tragedies of Mary Pickford.
Which is O.K. Neither was Love Story , or A Walk to Remember , or any of the myriad other tearjerkers that play out in the same fashion.
It goes beyond the absurdity of Ali MacGraw looking adorable moments before her death in the groundbreaking 1970 film “Love Story.”
Move over Love Story and Walk to Remember, there’s a new mildly morbid cry in town.
The concept of doomed love is as old as "Romeo and Juliet," by William Shakespeare, who is also responsible for the film's title.
Which is O.K. Neither was Love Story , or A Walk to Remember , or any of the myriad other tearjerkers that play out in the same fashion.
In adapting the story of the star-crossed romance between two teenage cancer victims, screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber plainly know they have an uphill battle to avoid being tarred with the same schmaltzy brush as previous entries in the sub-genre (Nicholas Sparks adaptation A Walk to Remember being the dubious prototype).
But "The Fault in Our Stars" isn't just a cry-a-minute film for teens looking for an emotional connection beyond SnapChat, and early on, 17-year-old heroine Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) shares that her story isn't like "Say Anything" either.
But a movie that positions itself as “the truth” takes a certain risk—especially as it raises the specter of the beloved Say Anything, where a Peter Gabriel song does fix everything.
Like “Say Anything,” “The Fault in Our Stars” is going to become a weepy rite-of-passage movie for this generation of young filmgoers.
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Fans of the book won’t love the quickened pace onscreen but will appreciate the book’s pop culture references in set props – a V for Vendetta poster on Augustus’ bedroom wall, the Hectic Glow on Hazel’s.
Screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber have remained faithful to John Green’s New York Times best seller, so much so that the only thing its hard-core fans can really take issue with is the fact that Shailene Woodley did not shave her head to make cancer-stricken heroine Hazel Grace look like Natalie Portman in “V for Vendetta” as Mr. Green had limned.
He has a “V for Vendetta” film poster over his bed, but we won’t hold that against him.
In unintentional design, the film is like Frank Borzage (“History is Made at Night”) meets Cameron Crowe (you know that guy), and I can’t resist a line like “I fell for him the way you fall asleep, slowly and all at once” when it is delivered with open, unabashed, pluperfect Grace.
It’s impossible not to compare him to Ryan Gosling’s effectiveness in 2004’s romantic gem “The Notebook” with Rachel McAdams.
Just like Natalie Portman in Garden State or Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown or any other MPDG you care to name, Gus's main function is to teach the protagonist how to embrace life, and as such the romance feels imbalanced – a couple of key changes from the novel make Gus into even more of a fantasy, and even less of a real teenage boy with his own demons.
I mean, I got it back when Kirsten Dunst kept taking photos with her “invisible camera” in Elizabethtown, solving all of Orlando Bloom‘s problems for reasons known only to herself, but I get it more now, I suppose.
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It's most comparable to Jonathan Levine's "50/50" in this way; it will leave you feeling like you've been punched in the gut, but it acknowledges that there can be humor even in the worst situations.
But then the story shifts to Amsterdam, and whatever intention Boone and his producers had of making this a different kind of cancer movie — something like Jonathan Levine’s 50/50, in other words — ends up in the nearest canal.
The Fault in Our Stars, like 2011’s 50/50, finds necessary humor in the gravest of subjects, the inherent glory and ridiculousness of life’s impermanence.
Whether you relish that depends upon your predilection for the Beaches, 50/50s and Shadowlands of this world.
For every smart, balanced portrait of living with illness like Jonathan Levine’s insightful “50/50,” there’s the grating form of bottled sentimentalism found in “The Bucket List.”
The screenplay contains more humor than can be found in the average cancer-related film, although it falls short of the pinnacle achieved by 50/50 , which largely avoided the kind of overt manipulation that emerges late in The Fault in Our Stars.
Thanks to Ansel Elgort, the film successfully finds comedy in its tragedy in much the same way 1997’s hidden gem “Life is Beautiful” allows you to laugh about a subject like the Holocaust when you never think you could.