The Fault in Our Stars Review
Yes I cried dammit.
I’m not even going to try to mask this under my usual thin layer of machismo. I naturally assume most of my readers are at least of above average intelligence and as such are generally perceptive enough to see that most of my macho bravado is a facade. I guess that’s the joke. During this movie two burning tears scalded tracks down the side of my face in what on a different day I might have called marks of shame but today I am just going to be OK with. Odds are within the next 30-40 words I will be back to my usual sarcastically bitter self but for now I will be OK with being vulnerable (my therapist would be highly pleased I think).
OK, enough of me spouting estrogen. Yes I saw it and in spite of the fact that I will now have to turn in my manliness card I quite enjoyed it. I think I see what women love about movies like this; it’s weirdly refreshing to feel a strong emotion (even a negative one) for a short duration and then be able to move on with your life (you know, when I think about it that’s kind of like how most guys see watching porn. Weird). You know, cry a little but not have it be something that sticks around with you. There wasn’t a dry eye in the very crowded theater (no way was I the creepiest person there. I was a perfectly normal dude in a Dickies shirt by himself in a theater full of women watching something I really had no business watching without a chick strong arming me to sit there). In my defense I did call a couple of my female friends in an attempt to get one of them to come with me but they all seemed to have other things to do.
So the movie was not what I would call great but was very effective. I am going to coin a new term here (Copyright 2014 David Inman): emotional waterboarding. This film holds it’s audience down with a towel over it’s head and forces a gushing hose of emotions into your face until you give it the response they want. Heavy handed does not begin to describe the emotional manipulation and by the end of the film I was feeling a little resentful for the lack of organic emotional flow. No one likes being told how to feel and this film does it in spades. Fortunately they do have a huge pile of talent both in front of and behind the camera to hide what they are doing but on some level you can’t help but feel it.
That being said the film was pretty amazing. I’m also going to throw some love towards the cast of this film. I was a little disparaging of her character in Divergent but Shailene Woodley can really act. I guess Tris was either good purposeful or bad accidental writing depending on that film’s writer’s intent. Here she really draws you into her character and the chemistry she enjoys with co-star Ansel Elgort was extremely refreshing. I guess that’s a big part of the emotional impact of this film but the acting on both of these young people was pretty amazing.
On the other hand I had the complete plot of this movie written out in my head within the first 15 minutes and was 100% correct without having read the book. I guess one of the emotions the filmmakers were not interested in having the audience experience was surprise (Surprise image courtesy of the cheap t shirt category. Good quality for being kind of inexpensive).
This is one of those films that’s good enough that I can’t think of anything really funny or interesting to drone on about so I’ll just get into the story. Hazel (Shailene Woodley-Divergent, the Descendants, the Spectacular Now) is a 17 year old girl who has survived lung cancer but it’s given that it could recur at any moment. She is more or less reconciled to her impending death and spends a lot of time reading a book about a girl with cancer. 
Her mother (Laura Dern-Blue Velvet, Inland Empire, Wild at Heart) keeps making her go to a support group that Hazel has little interest in until one day she meets Gus (Ansel Elgort-Divergent, Carrie).
He is brash, charming, and outgoing. He is also the typical modern teenage girl heart throb in that he is a dude who is almost a girl. In spite of that he is quite likable even by gushing fonts of testosterone such as myself (hey I can only keep the macho facade down for so long). He is also a cancer survivor and lost a leg. The two of them start up a very cute teenage romance based on the fact that Hazel loves a very depressing book that ends abruptly by an author named Van Houten.
Gus contacts Van Houten directly and gets a response and invitation to visit him in Amsterdam. Every kid with cancer gets a wish from the Genies so Gus makes it so he and Hazel can go see him. However before they go she has a medical complication that makes the doctor recommend no travel. She gives Gus a very sincere “let’s be friends” speech based on the fact that she could die at any time (I personally felt his pain on that one, although to date no women have been desperate enough to get away from seeing me by using the old “I have cancer” excuse. I guess I’m not that repugnant.) but he refuses to accept it.
Eventually they get things together enough to take the trip. They meet Van Houten (William DaFoe-Spider-Man, Boondock Saints, Odd Thomas (I saw this and it is not as bad as the you would imagine. I quite enjoyed it to be honest)), who is a total alcoholic jerk. After bitching him out they go with his assistant Lidewij (Lotte Verbeek-Nothing Personal, the Borgias, Suspension of Disbelief) and have a magically romantic date at the Anne Frank Museum. That night they hook up and are madly in love.
SPOILER ALERT In case your powers of precognition are not as strong as mine and you didn’t see this coming it turns out that it’s Gus rather than Hazel who has massive cancers throughout his body. The last third of the film is him deteriorating but physically and emotionally. It puts the “um” in bummer and if you aren’t crying when he passes stay away from me because I can only assume you have a collection of cat skins drying in the shed out back with your machete collection. There is a funeral and a bunch of eulogies as well, and Van Houton resurfaces at the end.
The stars:
Really, really, really emotional. I guess the term to use is powerful. Three stars. Excellent acting all around. Two stars. Decent story. One star. Likable characters that you really connect with. One star. In general a good film and if you are of the correct mindset going in you will enjoy it. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes:
You will feel like a puppet with a hand in your ass emotionally by the end of this. Manipulative does not begin to describe it. One black hole. Pacing dragged for most of Act 2. The denouement more or less makes you forget the sluggishness but this film runs 125 minutes and there are parts where you will feel every one of them. One black hole. If you are not of the right mindset the bummer nature of this film could have you curled up on the floor of your room in a fetal position. No one likes seeing bad things happen to kids. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A total of five stars. Firmly in the good section, although it bugs the crap out of me that this film crushed Edge of Tomorrow at the box office opening weekend. Should you see it? If you are a girl yes. If you have a girl to see it with maybe, but only if your payment is seeing another more masculine movie (Edge of Tomorrow, perhaps) or a wild night of sexual abandon. Date movie? Duh. This is THE date movie. This film should get you totally hooked as long as your name isn’t Dave Inman. Just be ready to hold her quietly for a while. Bathroom break? There are huge swatches of time in the middle that are pretty missable. Probably the airplane flight to Amsterdam is the most identifiable and non-essential.
Thanks for reading. Lots more to write about soon, although I don’t think I will see a move tonight. Probably finish up my “flawless” list. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu and feel free to post comments here (yes we fixed the comment section). Also if you have an off topic question or suggestion email me at [email protected]. Thanks and talk to you soon.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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