Rowena’s review of The Fault in Our Stars.
Hazel and Augustus are two teenagers who share an acerbic wit, a disdain for the conventional, and a love that sweeps them on a journey. Their relationship is all the more miraculous, given that Hazel’s other constant companion is an oxygen tank, Gus jokes about his prosthetic leg, and they meet and fall in love at a cancer support group.
After reading and loving Divergent, I knew that I was going to read this book in preparation of the movie’s release and I’m not sorry that I did because I cried just as much while watching the movie as I did when I read the book.
This movie was good. There were some differences between the book and the movie but they were good changes, changes that made sense for the movie and changes that I thought worked well.
The casting was fantastic. I thought Ansel Elgort was the perfect Augustus Waters and Shailene Woodley brought Hazel Grace’s character to life wonderfully. I also thought that Nat Wolff made a fantastic Isaac.
Seeing the scenes from the book come to life made me enjoy the movie so much more, and my friend Mulu agreed with me on this because she read the book right before we went to see it and got a lot more out of the movie than she would have, had she not read the book. The whole support group set? Yeah, that was EXACTLY how I pictured it and Patrick? He was exactly how I pictured Patrick to be.
The story of Hazel and Augustus was a beautiful one. A sad one as well but it was beautiful all the same. They’re both victims of cancer, Hazel is on going while Augustus was in remission for a year and a half. They become friends and Augustus makes it clear from the beginning that he likes Hazel. The things that he said to her and the things that he did for her were completely swoon-worthy and Ansel did a wonderful job of delivering each and every scene.
I didn’t make the connection while reading and watching the movie but one thing that my sister Delene brought up was how my sister Helen handled herself like a champ while watching the movie. I mean, it had to have hit home for her since just a few years ago, RJ had osteosarcoma (which was the same thing that Augustus had) and just a few months ago, Kaleo amputated both of his legs (Augustus only got one leg amputated) so she had first hand experience with everything that Augustus went through. And then for the movie/book to end the way that it did? Holy cow. Helen reaches new depths of awesome-ness every day.
There are a whole lot of things that I loved about this movie and not a thing that I can remember not liking so do I recommend this movie? Definitely.
Grade: 5 out of 5
This movie is available from Fox 2000 Pictures, Temple Hill Entertainment and TSG Entertainment. I bought this DVD (and saw it in the theaters on my own dime too).
