Film Review: Tear-jerker The Fault in Our Stars is romantic without being mawkish
Here's a film so endearingly made that it has persuaded a few critics to declare its distance from the genre's shameless, manipulative clichés — even though it offers exactly that.
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort
Director: Josh Boone
Category: IIA
Here's a film so endearingly made that it has persuaded a few critics to declare its distance from the genre's shameless, manipulative clichés — even though it offers exactly that.
This faithful adaptation of John Green's popular young-adult novel is scripted by (500) Days of Summer writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and directed by sophomore director Josh Boone (Stuck in Love).
A romantic tear-jerker that's all the more sad for its protagonists' perky defiance, The Fault in Our Stars cleverly sugar-coats the bitter pill at its core with humour, spontaneous banter, and the best performance yet by star-in-the-making Shailene Woodley (Divergent).
Sixteen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster (Woodley) is suffering from thyroid cancer, but the Indianapolis teen is determined not to wallow in the "movie version" of mortally ill teenagers. "This is the truth, sorry," she declares her raw vision in her first-person narration.
Or so she says. Because once the oxygen-tank-dependent heroine attends a cancer support group at the urging of her loving parents, Frannie (Laura Dern) and Michael (Sam Trammell), and coincidentally bumps into the love of her life there, a fantasy account is all but written in the audience's stars.