Review of The Fault in Our Stars (2014) by Alwayswatching — 30 Aug 2014

“The Fault in Our Stars” is the love story of Hazel and Augustus, two teenagers with terminal cancer who meet in a support group. It is based on a book by the same title written by John Green.

Hazel, played by Shailene Woodley, and Augustus, played by Ansel Elgort have two completely different characters. Hazel is very pessimistic, depressed, asocial, and melancholic. Augustus is optimistic, cheerful, convivial, and funny. As their love story progresses their characters change. Hazel starts to see bright sides of the world and Augustus gives up his super ambitious dreams and becomes more realistic.

Not every director is brave enough to step into the territory of showing the daily life of terminally ill people but this territory is also easily manipulative. Josh Boone should be praised for his courage for directing “The Fault in Our Stars” and puts many engaging moments and a good takeaway message in the movie but it does not mean his work has no shortcomings.

The main problem with the movie is the poor script adaptation. The movie relies less on the visual presentations and more on Hazel's monologues to narrate the story. Instead of seeing events in the movie, we mostly hear them (or we see them and then unnecessarily hear them). A better script adaptation could have transformed more of the oral narrations into more engaging visual narrations. Moreover, cliché sentences like “I love you” and “You are beautiful” appear in the movie over and over without adding anything new to the story. The ultimate message of the movie is excessively highlighted with excessive dialogues and performances.

The second problem with this movie is far-from-perfect performances. The supporting actors and actresses in the movie pull out good performances but the leading actor and actress are not convincing. The Augustus' ever-present smile and his never-disturbed coolness feels unreal and sometimes annoying. Still, it seems the script is to blame here. Performances are not the only part of the movie that feel fake and unreal. The whole story about Hazel and Augustus's last wish and how they consummate their love is so fake that I couldn't help but to keep closing my eyes through it.