MOVIE REVIEW - THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, SANS THE IRONY

Movie Review – The Fault in Our Stars

Review by Charlie Tarabour

This young adult book was wildly popular when it came out last year, so I’m not surprised by the quick turnaround. Hollywood makes quick work of cannibalizing sister medias in order to shorten the costly creative process. Intriguing issues arise in adaptations. They are definitely present in this movie and worth a look.

This love story of two cancer-stricken teens already meets the concerned viewer half way. There is very little work needed to feel out these characters and gain their empathy. You could watch this movie backwards and you would still be smacked in the head with emotion. It’s “Terms of Endearment” sans the irony.

I should say the story is well thought-out, if well trod, and elicits real feelings of romantic tragedy. The movie gets close to achieving the same effect as the book but skirts the jerk that brought tears to my eyes when I first read it. And there are two issues holding this movie back.

One is the overwrought stylization of the movie. The music cues are mawkish and they overplay the action on screen. The camera moves (choice blurry-edged shots, slo-mo sequences and lens flares) were downright ingratiating, demanding the viewer to well up and feel something. The story content itself is affecting enough. It does not need to be spiced up. The movie would’ve been more effective if more soberly shot.

The other issue is in the character of Gus, the wildly audacious love interest of Shailene Woodley’s more reserved Hazel. He makes grand pronouncements and irritatingly symbolic gestures, culminating in a trip to Amsterdam to find the author they both admire.

In the book, these peculiarities come across as charming, but not in the movie. Maybe they just read better on the book page. Or maybe the pretty boy, Ansel Elgort, managed to trammel his character’s philosophical quirkiness. And his rants and soliloquys come out too lucid, too rehearsed. He also looked way too tan and toned for a kid with cancer.

I’m going to withhold my own rants about the glossy grooming at work in most Hollywood book adaptations (“Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, anyone?) or the nepotism at work in the casting of Elgort (son of a famous fashion photographer). I just think the movie, in particular the failure of Gus’ character to translate, reveals a very important lesson about book-to-movie adaptations: some books can’t be movies. They belong too much to the idiom of literature. It’s a difficult issue to interrogate. Sometimes the author themselves can’t even make the call. And there probably is a way to make this book work better as a movie. I’m just introducing the thoughts here. I think they should be considered.