As tempting as it is to roll eyes at the subject matter of teenage love fettered by terminal illness, Josh Boone’s The Fault In Our Stars -a refreshingly sober melodrama, respectful of such a weighty topic it dissects- requires one to check that attitude at the door. Adapted from John Green’s bestselling young-adult novel of the same title (whose fans are restless with anticipation if the sensational social-media activity around the film proves anything), The Fault In Our Stars only occasionally borders, but rarely crosses over to, a trite territory. And somewhere along the way, it manages to break your resistance and get under your skin.
In accomplishing that, a lot of credit has to be given to the film’s terrific, charismatic leads Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, for the honesty and restraint in their portrayals of Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, two terminally ill teenagers who fall in love amid their upward battle with cancer. The Fault In Our Stars mainly follows Hazel, who joins a support group to cope with her depression (or rather, to grant her mother’s wish) and meets Augustus, who has one leg lost to cancer, and a best friend about to lose his second eye to the disease. The film lets the audience leisurely indulge in the pair’s instantaneously unique connection, as they bond through their compatible intellect and mutual worries beyond their years. Elgort at once elevates deadpan-humored, disarmingly sweet Augustus to an exuberant, boisterous presence. Woodley, on the other hand, delicately reveals the spirited skeptic in the emotionally bent-out-of-shape Hazel. While sharing their passions and musings with each other, Hazel talks Augustus into reading her favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten, which she races through repeatedly. Influenced by the novel as much as Hazel’s affection for it, Augustus sets to find its mysterious author, who hasn’t written since that novel, and receives an invitation for both to visit him in Amsterdam. Despite Hazel’s worsening condition and financial hurdles her family faces, the two find themselves on their way to Amsterdam with Hazel’s mother (Laura Dern, a splendidly welcome sight in the role of an ill-fated, yet loving parent, duty-bound to watch her kid “bite it from cancer.”)
Green’s book is adapted for the screen by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the screenwriting duo with shared credits on Marc Webb’s 500 Days of Summer and another coming-of-age title, James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now (in which Woodley incidentally also stars). Whether or not the script is perennially faithful to the novel, the duo, at least, have signed their names under a reasonably functional script about an ultimately doomed romance and coming-of-age story (true to the book, told in the first-person point-of-view from Hazel’s perspective, albeit with a somewhat overused voiceover), that sympathetically understands the hardships faced not only by those bearing cancer, but also those who care for them. Surprisingly, The Fault In Our Stars subtly includes an upbeat 80s wit (especially through Augustus’ character) and somehow become similar to the authenticity of John Hughes’ teen characters. Even some tracks among the film’s rich soundtrack – such as Charli XCX’s “Boom Clap”- carry signs of an updated 80s sensibility.
Though certain dysfunctions do cloud an otherwise clear picture. The Amsterdam scenes with a drunk, bitter Van Houten (played by Willem Dafoe) — actually, most scenes that involve him, especially the film’s final act — seem staccato, and strangely out of place. Part of the problem is the casting of Dafoe, whose overbearing aura throughout the film works against the naturalistic ease of the rest of the cast. Moreover, the resolution in the finale unfortunately feels rushed and somewhat unfinished.
Yet as an elegiac love story (certainly an oddity amongst superheroes and re-imagined childhood tales that take over summer screens), The Fault In Our Stars still works wonders, thanks in large part to the film’s insistence of dialed-down sentimentality, unlike other melodramas involving terminal illness, with Nick Cassavetes’ My Sister’s Keeper immediately coming to mind.Make no mistake, though; the tears will fall inevitably, but they won’t feel as though they are being forced out of you.
