The Fault in Our Stars (M)
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort and Nat Wolff
THERE’S more than one fault in The Fault in Our Stars.
Just like Mandy Moore’s horrific attempt in A Walk to Remember, this could have been a beautiful story about a young couple who meet at a cancer support group and fall in love.
But it falls short because it’s too Hollywood – the audience is told that now is the time to cry and be sad, or now you can be happy because life goes on.
It’s too manufactured and there’s only one ‘woe is me’ scene. In my view, this is not a true representation of what it’s like to live with cancer and what it’s like to lose a loved one.
There are some moving and powerful scenes in The Fault in Our Stars and there is humour and feel-good moments too.
When Hazel and Gus meet at a cancer support group, the audience is taken on a journey and you end up hoping they will both be OK and it will all work out.
After a few hiccups, and a trip to Amsterdam, they fall in love.
But soon enough the bubble bursts and reality hits.
Shailene Woodley (Hazel) and Ansel Elgort (Gus) carry this movie until the end. They portray two normal teenagers dealing with unimaginable grief and pain and they do it well.
But as always with teen dramas, I felt the movie wrapped up too nicely and at the end it’s like you’re meant to be OK with what happened and the tragedy of it all, how unfair life can be. Que sera.
Perhaps The Fault in Our Stars is more about love and loss than it is cancer and grief, but despite the beautiful acting and the potential for this to be unlike any other movie, it’s too much like you’d expect.
And I can’t be OK with a movie that ties it all up in a neat little package because that’s not what it’s like in real life.
– Danielle Galvin
