tek's rating:

The Fault in Our Stars (PG-13)
20th Century Studios; History vs Hollywood; IMDb; John Green; official website; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Wikia; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Disney+; Google Play; Hulu; iTunes; Max; Movies Anywhere; Vudu; YouTube

This came out in 2014, but I didn't see it until 2018. It's based on the 2012 novel by John Green, which I haven't read. I wasn't really sure whether I'd like it, and it took awhile for me to really start liking it once I got around to watching it. There was never a point when I disliked it... I mean, from the start I thought it had its good points. But I also thought it wasn't great. However, it gets progressively better throughout the film.

The movie is narrated by the protagonist, Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley), who has thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. She's on a medication that seems to be working as far as the cancer itself is concerned, but she still has trouble breathing, so she has to cart an oxygen tank around everywhere she goes. And her mother, Frannie (Laura Dern), encourages her to attend a support group. Hazel doesn't like the idea, but she does end up meeting a guy named Augustus "Gus" Waters (Ansel Elgort), who is a survivor of cancer, and who had lost one of his legs, below the knee. But he's not at the group for himself, but rather to support his best friend, Isaac, who has already lost one of his eyes, and will soon lose the other. Hazel and Gus quickly become friends, and then more than friends. She makes him read her favorite book, which is about a girl who died of cancer. But they both want answers to what happens to the surviving characters after the main character dies. And Gus manages to arrange a trip to Amsterdam to meet the author, Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe). But you know what they say... you should never meet your heroes.

Well... throughout all of this, Hazel falls in love with Gus "slowly, then all at once." Beyond that, I don't want to spoil anything else that happens. But I really thought it was a fairly good romantic story. Hazel and Gus were both pretty likable, and made a good couple. Oh, I also wanted to mention that Hazel's dad is played by Sam Trammell. Throughout the movie I kept thinking he looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. It wasn't until I read his name in the closing credits that I realized I knew him from True Blood, which is a show I was even later in watching than this movie (considering that the show started like six years before this movie came out). In fact I just got around to watching the first season a little bit earlier this year. Anyway, I guess I dunno what else to say.


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