The Fault In Our Stars

I'm going to be honest guys, romance and teen drama is usually not my thing but this adaptation of the critically acclaimed John Green novel tends to hit home compared to your usual run of the mill love story.

The Fault In Our Stars is grim, tragic and oddly beautiful. The story follows the lives of two star crossed lovers who connect through a shared affliction that most of us will face in one way or another in our lives, Cancer. Shailene Woodley stars as Hazel Grace, a teenager coping with terminal thyroid cancer and as such has to carry around an oxygen tank with her everywhere. Hazel begins the movie as cynical and rightfully depressed that her mother and doctor assures her is a side effect of cancer, she eloquently retorts that depression isn't a side effect of cancer, it's a side effect of dying. One of the many incredibly memorable lines present that really is pushing me in the direction of reading the book, I'm consistently told to. She at one point also refers to herself as a grenade as a way to dissuade anyone from getting close to her. Her condition leaves her unable to do much adventurous but sit around and watch day time television and read her favourite book, 'An Imperial Affliction' a story written the elusive Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe).

Her antithesis however takes the form of self assured and wildly optimistic Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort) a cancer survivor who's operation to remove his osteosarcoma has sadly cost him one of his legs, rather than dwelling on it however he puts his best foot forward (pun intended) and begins to bring Hazel Grace out of her shell and even smile from time to time. He's hard not to like and everyone could use somebody like him from time to time, one thing that doesn't hold up on the big screen though is his habit with cigarettes. I'm told in the novel it's quite clever but he keeps a pack of cigarettes and will have an unlit one in his mouth, his reasoning is having something dangerous close to him but not giving it the power to kill him, It's a metaphor apparently, on screen it comes off a little pretentious sadly.

There is great chemistry between all cast members here, this is a love story and even though it involves some of the usual tropes you'll see in every other movie it's very human treatment of cancer is one of the more moving moments in the film, Hazel Grace's relationship with her woefully conflicted mother really reminds you that in a family it isn't just the person with cancer that suffers, behind closed doors loved ones will drop the brave faces and fall apart, Laura Dern (remember the paleobotanist in Jurassic Park? She digs in the triceratops crap?) is one of the films greatest players, and even at the characters weakest moments displays a plethora of heart and emotion.

An incredibly poignant scene mid way through involving the Anne Frank House has Hazel struggling to make her way up the steep stairs to the haunting yet empowering words of Anne Frank herself is something I came away fondly remembering. Much to the protest of Augustus who tells her she doesn't have to do it, she perseveres dragging her oxygen tank with her, a physical manifestation of the weight she's been carrying for years, she makes it to the top and reminds the audience of the raw determination of the human spirit, I think if you see any scene from the movie then find this one.

Screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Webber do well with the source material and some of the lines that you'd imagine would only work in print flow seamlessly with a little help from the actors, I'm often told that John Green really understands the young mind but I'm a little hesitant with the statement. I rather believe that he just has a knack for understanding the human spirit and in a story rife with foreboding messages and inevitable misery he reminds you to live the life you've got while you have it. So yeah ladies and gents, not your every day love story.

Probably one for the ladies gents but for the softer among you bring a tissue or two.