The Fault in Our Stars: A Review

By Maggie Martin June 9, 2014

I cannot believe that it has been exactly a full year since my first post about The Fault in Our Stars hitting the big screen. I can still remember how excited I was on the day that it was officially announced and how many people I convinced to read the book leading up to its release this past Friday.

That being said, I had no idea that it would become this powerhouse phenomenon ranking up with the Twilight craze. My mind is honestly blown. But, hats off to Fox 2000 for realizing that this low-budget film deserved the big-budget treatment in terms of marketing and promotion. It has already made $48 million in the US opening weekend coming off of a $12 million budget. That is equally insane.

Because it’s so hard to decide which parts were my favorites, here are my top 5 favorite things that the movie brought to my already well versed TFiOS experience.

Ansel Elgort

I read an article that said that Ansel Elgort was “just okay” as Gus the other day before I went to see the movie so my expectations were really low. I knew that Shailene Woodley would be magnificent—I love her in The Spectacular Now and The Descendants, I had no doubt. But hearing that Augustus Waters was “just okay” really does not do him justice at all. I felt like he did a great job of depicting Gus’ “devil may care” attitude but also punching out for the serious moments. I won’t spoil anything, but the gas station scene? That was so painful to watch because it was pretty damn well acted. The chemistry between Shailene and Ansel was perfect. When I originally read the book I pictured Gus to be a bit more suave and less baby-faced, but his baby face made Ansel the perfect Gus. It made his need to use fanciful language and grand illusions to mask his fear that much more evident.

Laura Dern and Sam Trammell

I went to see this film with my mom and my sister and I think that the moments that hit us the hardest were not between Hazel and Gus, but between the parents. One of Hazel’s iconic lines is “the only thing worse than biting it from cancer is having a kid bite it from cancer.” Their relationship was more powerful to me in the theater than it ever was when I read the book. I lost it when they all made it back from Amsterdam and Hazel’s father (Sam Trammell) starts to cry from relief. It’s these little subtle moments that take your breath away in the movie. I felt like I couldn’t even cry at the ending because I knew all along what was going to happen, but the little moments like this? I was gone.

The Humor

You guys, who could have predicted that they would do a hilarious montage of Patrick (Mike Birbiglia) like five minutes in that would make me CRACK. UP? From there the movie had me laughing through my tears, one time especially at the expense of Isaac (Nat Wolf) that either wasn’t said in the novel or I had forgotten about it. The gif is displayed appropriately next to this.

The Soundtrack

I was eating it up in the few weeks before the movie released when Fox 2000 was releasing singles from the soundtrack. I feel like every song fits magically and it has quickly become my favorite thing to listen to on my way to work in the morning. One song in particular, Wait by M83, has been a long-time favorite of mine and it has special meaning to the director of the film, Josh Boone. In the CD jacket description, Boone shares that this song got him through a time when his dear friend had cancer and eventually passed away. Knowing that backstory makes the appearance of this song at least twice throughout the movie that much more moving. There’s also a really amazing article where the soundtrack coordinator Season Kent described his meaning behind each song selection. Check that out here, I highly recommend it.

The Response from the Nerdfighter Community

I think one of the chief concerns of TFiOS gaining so much popularity was that the community surrounding it would become artificial, that there would be too many people reading the book because it was popular and not enough that appreciated the culture surrounding it. I know it was mine as well. While there were some horribly written articles that stated John’s internet stardom stemmed from the success of TFiOS alone, there were some really great ones like this one published in The New Yorker about the community. While this community has expanded enormously (John has over 2 million followers on Twitter no compared to Hank’s 400,000) I don’t think it has diminished in quality. It has opened up a lot of younger viewers to the concept of decreasing worldsuck and banding behind intelligent ideas and discussion.

Images not linked to The Fault in Our Stars Facebook page courtesy of AnselGifs on Tumblr.