The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars is a 2014 American drama film, about a young girl suffering from terminal cancer who falls in love for the first time. The film was adapted from a novel of the same name by John Green, and stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort.

Woodley plays Hazel Grave Lancaster, a young girl living with her parents in Indianapolis, struggling to cope with impending death as a result of her terminal cancer. At a support group for cancer patients, she meets Augustus Waters, an amputee and cancer survivor who she subsequently falls in love with. The cast of this film is superb, with Shailene Woodley giving an outstanding performance as the strong, yet fragile Hazel, a girl who tries to prepare those around her for her death, and who has to convince her parents to go on without her.

Elgort is also fantastic as Augustus, an unusually wise and brave young man, who finds himself weakening and falling for Hazel. Filling out the supporting cast is Laura Dern, playing Hazels mum, a woman dealing with the constant sickness of her daughter. Willem Defoe plays Peter Van Houten, the author of Hazel's favorite book, called an imperial affliction, and who she travels to Amsterdam to meet. The entire film is bolstered by a fantastic soundtrack, featuring the talents Ed Sheeran, Tom Odell and Charlie XCX, who contributes a fantastic song called Boom Clap to the film, which perfectly captures the bittersweet nature of the film.

It should be said that the film is a tearjerker, i personally was sat in my room bawling with a tube of loo roll next to me two thirds of the way through, but that's just me. The first part of the film is reasonably cheerful, and there is something subversive about the way the film sets its viewers up, like a roller coaster train climbing a hill the audience knows that the fall out from this film is going to be huge, and as the film goes on we become more enamored and emotionally connected to these characters, and so to see them hurt is painful to watch.

Overall The Fault in Our Stars is emotional without being melodramatic, it's superbly acted and written, and is a touching heartfelt young adult adaptation. Rating: A

Hazel Grace Lancaster: But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.