THE FAULT IN OUR STARS… 3.2***

 

         “The Fault in Our Stars”  is a heart wrenching story about the effects on all involved when someone is dying , about first, and probably, the last love of 2 young people, and about how you must play the game of life with the cards you are dealt. It had the potential to be a very emotionally manipulative story but it isn't. Yes, it breaks your heart but not because it's so sad but because you really care for the characters and truly can feel their joy and heartache. It's also  funny and insightful with just the  right blend of levity and honesty.  This could so easily have gone wrong: a story about two teenagers facing life- ending incurable cancer could so easily have been overly-sentimental. But, while being a real tear-jerker, the movie beautifully treads that fine line with skill and warmth. Hazel has thyroid cancer which has  metastasized to her lungs, and throughout the film she wears a breathing tube and lugs around a portable oxygen tank. Gus has bone cancer which has gone into remission after the amputation of one leg. They meet at a support group for young people experiencing cancer. A friendship soon develops and heads quickly to romance and love.

 

The movie is based on a very popular best-selling young adult novel by John Green. So it has found a ready audience in spite of its serious subject. But for those who haven’t read the book l (like me) will find this to be an impressive and moving movie. Of course, it would be easy to be cynical about a film like this, dismissing it as mere manipulation, but ultimately all cinema, indeed all art, is manipulative… but this is not a self-pitying story, it is instead  a life-affirming story. .The story bravely confronts the very difficult questions:  How to face death?  How will I be remembered?  Does my life, and will my death, have meaning? .

 

Movies of this sort live or die on one thing - the chemistry between the leads, and here he chemistry is spot-on perfect.  Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort are perfectly cast as Hazel and Gus. Both give powerful performances. They are both amazing and gifted actors. Shailene and Ansel's on-screen chemistry is natural, beautiful and phenomenal. They make Hazel and Gus two very likable  characters  and their story one of the more memorable love stories . Together they are simply marvelous .

 

Clark

 

Footnote: The title of the book and the film comes from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" when Cassius declares: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings". For Hazel and Gus, their cancer may be in the stars but their response to such tragedy is ultimately bravely in themselves.