Annnnd I make my triumphant return to blogger-dom! Readers, I have seen many a film over the past 6 weeks and I plan to write one of those catch-up blog posts where I do mini-reviews of all of them very soon, but I just can't relegate the wonderful film The Fault in Our Stars to a single paragraph in a giant collection of reviews. It deserves better than that.
Like many other adaptations of YA novels into films, I haven't read the actual book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, although God knows I plan to now. Unlike Divergent, which I saw a month ago, I'm not satisfied to let this story end on the big screen. I want to read the book as well because I'm sure that as meaningful and moving as the movie was, the book will be better. But that's not to say the movie wasn't excellent! I recently saw a click-bait headline that said "The Fault in Our Stars: Manipulative and Crass". Well, fuck me, but I just don't think that journalist and I saw the same movie. The film I saw, while subject to occasional moments of cheesiness, was achingly authentic. Sure, I do take issue with the ethereal beauty of the stars (Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort) which never fades no matter how close to death they get. But despite the elements of Hollywood-ization, the message of the story remains pure: be grateful for the love you have and the time you have. If you find that sentiment manipulative and crass, well, then I can't do nothing for you, son.
The plot of The Fault in Our Stars is simple. Hazel Grace Lancaster (Woodley) is a 17 year old dying of terminal lung cancer. She's not depressed, per se, but she's also not exactly optimistic. Hanging in a limbo of time, Hazel spends her days reading, watching reality shows, and generally lounging around. Her mom urges her to go to a cancer support group for teens so that she can make some friends. There, she meets Augustus Waters (Elgort), a beautiful, arrogant, sunny young man who is a cancer survivor himself attending the group to support a friend of his. Gus takes an immediate liking to Hazel and begins to flirt with her in a gentle, yet firm way that doesn't really take no for an answer. Hazel is attracted to him, but can't get past the idea that she's a "grenade"--a ticking time bomb of sadness that could explode at any minute. Hazel is very aware that when she dies, her parents will be devastated. She doesn't want to extend that devastation to anyone else.
In spite of her attempts to emotionally distance herself from Gus, the two bond over Hazel's favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, by Peter van Houten. Hazel wishes she could go to Amsterdam to meet the author in person, but her family doesn't have the money to get her there. Lucky for her, Gus saved his "kid dying of cancer" wish and uses it to take Hazel and her mom to the European city of vice (and Anne Frank) to meet van Houten.The trip is a turning point in the story for the characters' relationship.
I won't get into what exactly happens during the rest of the film, but it's definitely a three-hankie picture. Hazel and Gus' relationship is interesting since they have to take turns being the strong one for the other. Their differing attitudes toward life change each others perspectives--Gus appears to be the classic optimist, the guy who want to leave a mark on the world, while Hazel sees oblivion as an inevitable reality of life. But when push comes to shove, Hazel is a steadying and comforting presence to Gus when his cavalier attitude about life with cancer crashes up against the reality of his own vulnerabilities and limitations. I liked that both characters were equally strong; there are no "damsel in distress" or "bad boy saved by love" tropes here. There are just two precocious teens forced to grapple with untimely sickness and death who happen to be lucky enough to find love. Am I skeptical that a 17 and 18 year old can fall in "real" love, especially in such a short amount of time? Of course. But time plays by different rules in The Fault in Our Stars: when you might have one year, one month, or one week left to live, you're not going to waste any goddamn time.
The acting in The Fault in Our Stars is awesome. Shailene Woodly and Ansel Elgort capture the contradictory nature of late adolescence--the simultaneous arrogance and vulnerability. One minute you're drinking champagne in an expensive Dutch restaurant, the next you're in the fetal position crying yourself to sleep. Maturity is not a line that you cross on one particular day when you go to college, or get married, or have kids--it's a painful path most folks are on their whole lives. While cancer forces Gus and Hazel to grow up quickly, it doesn't magically make them wise or mature. They're still learning the same lessons every other 17-year-old is learning, in addition to harsher ones about life and death.
Hazel's parents are played by Laura Dern and Sam Trammel (who also plays Sam Merlotte, my favorite character on True Blood). They are relatively relaxed for the parents of a dying teenage girl. But a flashback reveals that when Hazel was 13 years old she was very near death and managed to pull through with the help of some trial drugs. In my interpretation, that near loss let Hazel's parents relax a bit and be thankful for the extra time they were given with their daughter. Her parents' down to earth nature was refreshing in a film this emotionally intense. If they had been hysterical, overprotective parents, I don't think the movie would have been half as good.
Willem Dafoe also does a great job in the role of Peter van Houten, the author Hazel loves who turns out to be not what she (or the audience) expects at all.
I have to admit, I LOVED The Fault in Our Stars. There were a couple scenes that made me cringe a bit (spoiler: when Gus and Hazel kiss in the Anne Frank house and everyone bursts into applause? That is so ridiculous and cliched it belongs on the Internet Meme Database, not in a movie as good as this one). But overall, the movie got to me, dammit! Even though it pretties up cancer a whole lot (the characters have thick hair, beautiful skin, and barely ever throw up or cry), the larger ideas of how everyone's time is limited and love is a precious gift and that dying doesn't mean you have to lose your sense of humor or your anger and snark--those shine through like stars in the night sky.
4.5 out of 5 stars
