The Fault in Our Stars (***)
Directed
by: Josh Boone
Starring:
Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Mike
Birbiglia, Lotte Verbeek, Willem Dafoe
Seen:
June 19th 2014
***
Out of ****
The
Fault in Our Stars is a beautiful tragedy, and it manages to entertain and keep
a relatively light tone while dealing with the hard hitting issue of cancer in
a group of young people’s lives. The topic is heavy, yet the movie is a
romantic comedy drama, which is exactly what you get; your heart is affected and
your funny-bone tickled. I suspect memories of this movie will, for most
people, consist of a lingering and inviting warmth with a touch of bittersweet sadness.
The movie is based on the New York Times bestseller novel of the same name by
John Green.
At
around twelve or thirteen years old, Hazel developed thyroid cancer which
metastasized to her lungs, leaving her with weak breathing and the occasional
water-in-the-lungs emergency. Now, at 18, Hazel (Woodley) is surviving because
of a good reaction to an experimental drug. Her mother Frannie (Dern) convinces
her to attend a cancer support group. Hazel attends against all her witty
reasoning to the contrary, and she meets Augustus “Gus” Waters (Elgort), who
can’t keep his eyes off of her, and who, after the meeting, tells her so. Hazel
is an intellectual type, her favourite book being An Imperial Affliction; the
story about a young girl who eventually dies of cancer. Gus on the other hand
is a jock, having been a basketball player before losing his right leg just
above the knee to an osteosarcoma, and his favourite book is pretty much the
antithesis of An Imperial Affliction, a science fiction novel. The two switch
books, and in this start they seeing into each other’s worlds, and they start
falling for each other, Gus for Hazel’s seriousness, and Hazel for Gus’s
playful and ever positive spirit.
Gus
knows that Hazel loves An Imperial Affliction, and manages to arrange for them
to go to Amsterdam where the book’s author Peter van Houten (Dafoe) lives to
get resolution on some of the open issues in the book. The trip is not without
incident however, as firstly it’s almost cancelled when Hazel has a scare, and secondly
when Van Houten is not what Hazel expected. This leaves Hazel in the dark about
the book, and by extension about what will happen to her parents when she is
gone. The movie is a tragedy though, and when it comes, it is heart-breaking.
Hazel and Gus must cope with a seriously unfair situation, and their views on
life and death will be sorely challenged.
The Fault
in Our Stars is simply filmed and the story plainly told through great
performances. The movie walks a fine line, successfully balancing a light tone
with the morbid seriousness of young mortality and cancer. You never feel that it’s
being irreverent or overly depressing, even though events depicted would rip
most peoples’ hearts to shreds. Shailene Woodley gives a pitch perfect
performance as the lead character and sometimes narrator of the movie, and the
viewer can easily understand why Ansel Elgort’s Gus falls in love with Hazel. Ansel
Elgort himself delivers a very lovable yet complex Gus, who turns out to be
more than he seems at first. Everyone involved in supporting roles lends
credence to the story, and nothing felt out of place or awkward as could have
easily been the case. The Fault in Our Stars is a beautiful yet tragic story about
love and death, and the infinity in between those two extremes.
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