The Fault in Our Stars

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Andrew

Kids with cancer. It's not exactly a laugh riot. However the film claims it's not going to sugar coat the harsh realities of the story but really, the audience gets off pretty lightly here. This is primarily a teen romance after all. It's all about the feels. But they should set us up for a hard time and then only deliver sunshine and rainbows.

I enjoyed the two leads. They are fine. Shailene Woodley is already a master of the awkward meet cute. I just wished the pacing was a little quicker. I get it takes time to build the relationship for an audience to invest in these kids but it really started to drag in the middle. Once the disease really kicks in they talk about how tragic it is to have so little time, but instead it felt like they were overstaying their welcome.

And the catharsis and wrap up is very slow too. It felt like a 3 hour movie.

Laura Dern does not wear shorts.

The success of the film really depends entirely on how much you engage with these two leads. I've been pretty cynical so far but I thought it worked very well actually. They don't milk the tragedy tooooo much but you'll get your weepies here if that's what you're looking for.