I have not read the book, so I will not be making a page-to-screen comparison when it comes to The Fault in Our Stars, nor should I even if I could. That said, The Fault in Our Stars is a good movie for what it is, which is a movie about kids with cancer. We’re talking about a story that’s inherently emotional and sad, thus meaning it’s incumbent on the director, writers and actors to make sure we ultimately care about the characters and their situation rather than just beating us over the head with their sickness. In those terms, this film does its very best to live up to that goal, a goal it sets out to accomplish in its opening narration, promising this to be the truth of what it’s like to live with cancer… buckle up.
Directed by Josh Boone (Stuck in Love), based on the novel by John Green and adapted by The Spectacular Now and (500) Days of Summer screenwriters Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter, it’s the latter of that list of names should give you a good indication of what you’re in for. Weber and Neustadter have shown both an ability to tackle dark subject matter as well as a knack for light-hearted storytelling and here they manage to merge the two into something of a “witty weeper” thanks in large part to key casting decisions.
Shailene Woodley (The Spectacular Now, Divergent) plays Hazel, a teenager and three-year cancer survivor. The doctors and her mother tell her she’s clinically depressed and who could blame her? While battling the fluid that builds in her lungs and accompanied by an oxygen tank everywhere she goes, Hazel sees her life as a struggle to survive and not necessarily for herself, but for her parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell).
Forced to attend a cancer support group, led by an eccentric gentleman, Hazel eventually meets Gus (Ansel Elgort), a charming, smiling and witty young man who’s also a cancer survivor himself. The two catch each other’s eye and a bond is immediately formed.
While both Hazel and Gus are heightened character creations, what I appreciated about both of them and their approach to their lives was a focus on living rather than death. While Gus frets over his personal legacy and how he’ll be remembered, he’s balanced out by Hazel’s acknowledgement that she will die one day, all of us do, and how she can live her life to the fullest while she’s here. Gus, almost ironically, is already doing this, but it takes Hazel to open his eyes to what it all means.
Elgort gets to play that “greatest boyfriend in the world” role with wit and witticisms to spare, and he nails every little tick, down to the cigarette he rolls between his teeth, but never lights. He likes to get as close to that thing that can kill him, but never gives it the power to. Yes, it’s corny in that “heightened reality because it’s a movie” kind of way, which seems to go against the film’s opening narration, but you buy into it because Hazel buys into it and these are characters dealing with death in the only way they know how.
The star, though, is Woodley whose smile can light up a room and tears can tear you to shreds. Ever since The Descendents this young actress has been wowing us and even in a movie as bad as Divergent she managed to rise above the material. Dern and Trammell also bring a lot to their roles, as does Nat Wolff playing one of Gus’ best friends and fellow cancer survivor.
The biggest problem the film faces in the way it introduces, discards and brings back a character played by Willem Dafoe whom, at one point, seems like a pivotal character in the story, but eventually plays like a plot gimmick and nothing more than a glorified mailman. His involvement, to me, is also a reason the film ends up running about 15 minutes too long.
There’s a great scene that takes place in an empty church that could have very easily served as the final scene in the film, but Boone eventually layers on one ending after another to the point Fault in Our Stars nearly becomes everything it didn’t want to be, which is a cliched “cancer movie”.
Fortunately the goodwill Boone and his cast built over the course of the film’s initial 105 minutes is more than enough to give a little leeway during its final moments. You’re going to laugh as much as you’re going to cry and it’s all in a celebration of how these two central characters find love in one another and a love for life.
It’s always sad to think of people’s lives being cut short before we believe it was their time to go, but there is happiness to be found in the knowledge these very people were able to find a level of comfort in life that many may never find in lives lived fourfold. With death comes sadness no matter when it arrives, but if we can live our lives to the fullest before that day comes and find joy in our time with others then we never really die as we will continue to live on in the memory of others. Surprisingly, this is a lesson you’ll also find in Akira Kurosawa‘s Ikiru (1952), and one of the greatest, most uplifting ways of looking at death I’ve ever come across.
