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.
