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The Fault in Our Stars film review

D IRECTOR : JOSH BOONE C AST : SHAILENE W OODLEY , ANSEL ELGORT , N AT W OLFF , L AURA DER

Shailene Woodley plays Hazel, a teenage cancer patient, whose thyroid

lesions have metastasised to her lungs; her condition, once gravely

critical, has stabilised due to experimental drug treatment, but she has

to wheel around a portable oxygen tank. In the support group that her

mom (Laura Dern) forces her to attend, Hazel catches the eye of Gus

(Ansel Elgort), a cute boy, whose osteosarcoma condition is also

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stabilised after the amputation of one leg, although this is mostly

concealed under his jeans.

Life-affirming Gus likes to have an unlit cigarette in his mouth to showhis existential defiance. Despite being such an obvious hottie, Gus is a

virgin. Hazel's own condition in this respect is apparently so self-evident

that she never says it out loud. Hazel is obsessed with a novel called An

Imperial Affliction with a bafflingly abrupt ending, all about a girl dying

of cancer, written by a reclusive author called Peter van Houten.

Impulsive, entrancing Gus whisks her and her mom off to Amsterdam tomeet her hero, and it is a journey that is to bring their relationship to a

crisis.

The title is taken from Cassius in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "The fault,

dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ But in ourselves, that we are

underlings." Perhaps getting cancer was written in the stars for them,

but Hazel and Gus realise that it is "in themselves" to do something in

response, up to them to make the best of life. That's fair enough. And

perhaps therapeutic escapism is the point of The Fault in Our Stars

although Hazel claims that it is the real thing. This prettified cancer

fantasy comes nowhere near.

As is always the case with book-to- film adaptations, Greens sourcematerial has been snipped down a bit to fit into a nifty two-hour

package, and while most of the cut chunks arent missed .Greens book

is beloved by the younger set, and it occasionally feels as if the film is

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pandering to a teen-skewing audience, with bubbly text messages and

on-screen emails frequently popping up, and a mismatched soundtrack

thats heavy on popular acts and light on the kind of songs that add

appropriate emotion .

However ,the film has enough charm and humor to keep it appealing

and dumbing things down doesnt feel particularly smart or canny, and

proves to be a minor distraction to an otherwise majorly entertaining

feature.