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It should be agonizing, this tale of doomed love between cancer-stricken teens. It should be passionate, engrossing, suspenseful, something—even unabashed melodrama would have been appropriate, given the subject matter.

Instead, the film version of the best-selling novel "The Fault in Our Stars" feels emotionally inert, despite its many moments that are meant to put a lump in our throats. Perhaps it’s trying so hard to bludgeon us over the head and make us feel deeply that the result is numbing instead. There’s something just off about it for the vast majority of the time—an awkwardness to the staging, framing and pacing in director Josh Boone ’s adaptation of author John Green ’s tear-jerking, young adult phenomenon, and a need to spell everything out.

So much of what worked on the page—and made Green’s writing so lively and engaging—gets lost in translation and feels uncomfortably precocious when actual people actually say his words out loud. (Screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber , who also wrote the romantic charmers " (500) Days of Summer " and " The Spectacular Now ," remained very faithful to the book, which should make the core tween/teen fan base happy. Okay? Okay.)

There’s a specificity to Green’s language; his characters are hyper-verbal, self-aware and fiercely biting in the tradition of " Heathers " and " Clueless ." They know all too well that pop culture depicts cancer—especially young people with cancer—in a mawkish manner that they refuse to accept as they regard their own conditions. But while the flip, jaunty verbosity they use as a shield produces some pleasingly acerbic humor, it often feels forced and false in this setting.

Still, Shailene Woodley ’s abiding, disarming naturalism consistently keeps you engaged. She just doesn’t hit a false note. Following winning turns in the indie dramas " The Descendants " and "The Spectacular Now," and the blockbuster " Divergent ," Woodley continues to cement her accessible and likable on-screen persona. Her work is so strong, it makes you wish she had a better performance to play off of to create the sparky chemistry at the heart of this story.

Woodley stars as Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old Indianapolis girl who’s diagnosed with cancer at 13. It weakens her lungs, forcing her to drag an oxygen tank behind her wherever she goes and to stop to rest after climbing a flight of stairs. While her situation looked bleak a few years ago, participation in a new drug trial has prolonged her life for an indefinite amount of time. Her parents ( Laura Dern and Sam Trammell , with whom she shares some lovely, honest moments) try not to hover over their daughter as she attempts to maintain some vague semblance of teenage life, and they even share her fondness for using dark humor to defuse difficult moments.

Mom insists that Hazel attends weekly cancer support group meetings (where comedian Mike Birbiglia is the amusingly earnest leader). There, she meets the handsome and equally loquacious Augustus Waters ( Ansel Elgort , who coincidentally played Woodley’s brother earlier this year in "Divergent"). A former high school basketball star, Augustus lost his right leg below the knee to the disease and now walks with a prosthetic. In Hazel, he immediately recognizes a kindred spirit: a quick-witted smart-ass who can’t take any of the feel-good platitudes seriously.

While Woodley navigates the complexity of Green’s dialogue with ease, Elgort seems stiff and uncomfortable by comparison. His character is meant to be a bit pompous and formal in the beginning but instead comes off as nervous, and even seems to be rushing or slurring his lines at times. Elgort is boyishly handsome (in a way that’s distractingly reminiscent of " Love Story "-era Ryan O’Neal, actually) but never quite radiates the charisma required to keep up with Woodley. Their pairing feels like a missed opportunity.

Hazel and Augustus’ shared love of reading inspires a trip to Amsterdam to seek out the reclusive writer of Hazel’s favorite novel, the fictitious "An Imperial Affliction," which also happens to be about a young woman living with cancer. Willem Dafoe brings a jolt of creepiness to the role of the alcohol-addled author, a rare sensation in a film that too often feels tidy. Their visit also sets the stage for the oddest scene of all (in both the book and the film) when Hazel and Augustus share their first kiss before an applauding crowd of tourists in the attic of Anne Frank’s house. Yeesh.

Yet we know this bliss can’t last. And so "The Fault in Our Stars" descends into major hanky territory with an overpowering assist from a nearly omnipresent soundtrack of wistful alt-rock tunes that tell us what to feel, and when, and how much. (I will happily admit to having tears stream down my face during the third act of Green’s book but, alas, did not get choked up here.)

Theoretically, these iconoclasts wouldn’t want their story to be told in such obvious and heavy-handed fashion. To borrow their favorite line from Hazel’s favorite book: "Pain demands to be felt."

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some sexuality and brief strong language

125 minutes

Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace Lancaster

Ansel Elgort as Augustus Waters

Nat Wolff as Isaac

Laura Dern as Mrs. Lancaster

Sam Trammell as Mr. Lancaster

Willem Dafoe as Peter Van Houten

• Scott Neustadter
• Michael H. Weber

Cinematography

• Ben Richardson

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'The Fault in Our Stars': The reviews are in...

Perhaps the people who run studios thought Divergent was the big YA novel to launch Shailene Woodley into the stratosphere, but her performance in the cancer weepie The Fault in Our Stars might be the role that makes her a giant star.

Based on John Green’s 2012 best-seller, director Josh Boone’s movie tells the story of a cynical 16-year-old cancer patient (Woodley), saddled with an oxygen tank and breathing tube, and the more-dynamic, free-spirited remission patient (Ansel Elgort) who falls in love with her. “A generation of teens like [Woodley’s character] have been weaned on YA novels, leading to more discerning palates,” EW’s Chris Nashawaty writes in his review. “They can sniff out condescension from a thousand yards. That’s why they’re lucky to have an actress as effortlessly charismatic and natural as 22-year-old Woodley ( The Descendants ) as their stand-in.”

If you’ve read the book, you know the ending, and if you loved the book, you’re already whimpering. (Beware, fragile souls, the trailer awaits below.) If you’re perhaps older or didn’t read the book, think Love Story and everything that entails — spoilers, schmoilers. As the characters themselves learn, it’s not the ending that counts.

Read more from Nashawaty’s review, as well as a round-up of other notable critics, below.

Chris Nashawaty (Entertainment Weekly)

“[Gus] woos Hazel Grace as if his life depended on it; you get the impression that in some ways maybe it does. … In other words, he’s too good to be true. That’s the main flaw with Josh Boone’s otherwise poignant film. In Gus’ manic wish-fulfillment adorableness, he’s as eager to please as a litter of cocker-spaniel puppies. It’s as grating as it is hard to buy.”

Mick LaSalle ( San Francisco Chronicle )

“It’s exploitative in the most obvious ways, and yet sincere. It’s a product of sophisticated market calculation, and yet artless in its immediacy. … Shrewdly prefabricated and yet lovingly assembled, it is, in short, the most beautifully made cynical thing I’ve ever seen.”

Ann Hornaday ( Washington Post )

“Adapted from John Green’s bestselling novel by screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber ( (500) Days of Summer and The Spectacular Now ), The Fault in Our Stars brims with the kind of adolescent goofiness, searching and spiky anger that marked the John Hughes and Cameron Crowe films of another era.

David Edelstein ( New York — Vulture)

“There were times I felt a tingling in my tear ducts and almost let loose. But something rubbed me wrong about the opening voice-over, in which ­Hazel warns that the story she’s about to tell won’t be like one of those movies where everything gets solved with “a Peter Gabriel song.” (Dear Hazel: Eat me. Sincerely, Lloyd Dobler.)”

Ty Burr ( Boston Globe )

“Watching the mid-movie restaurant scene where Gus proclaims his love for Hazel with poetic awkwardness, the woman to the left of me was bawling her eyes out. The couple to my right strained to stifle laughter. You already know which group you belong to. ”

A.O. Scott ( New York Times )

“Part of the ingenuity of The Fault in Our Stars is the way it short-circuits any potential criticism through a combination of winsome modesty and brazen manipulation. These kids are so nice, so wise, so good-humored, and they also may be dying. What kind of a monster could look at them and find fault?”

Kimberley Jones ( Austin Chronicle )

“The film is bundled in kindness, and that’s nothing to shrug at. Green’s book made a point of underscoring what a privilege it is to love someone — notably, not to be loved, but to do the loving — and the film adaptation movingly puts those words to picture.”

Richard Roeper ( Chicago Sun-Times ) ▲

“After having the privilege of witnessing Shailene Woodley’s transcendent, pure and authentic performance in The Fault in Our Stars , I believe there are now only four slots available in the category of Best Performance by An Actress in a Lead role. She’s that memorable.”

Steven Rea ( Philadelphia Inquirer )

“Elgort (the son of photographer Arthur Elgort) is like a baby-faced Brando — disarming, and armed with a killer grin. When the pair, dressed for a fancy repast of risotto and Dom Pérignon, gaze across the table at each other, their characters’ love, defiant and resolute, feels real.”

Andrew Barker ( Variety )

“Hazel is a great character, tart without being cynical, vulnerable without being needy, and capable of tossing out bons mots like “I’m the Keith Richards of cancer kids” without seeming like a writerly construct. Augustus is decidedly less developed, … a male version of the types … usually played by Kate Hudson and Kirsten Dunst.”

Richard Corliss (TIME)

“Though you know that Fault , like Love Story , is bound to have a body count, the symbiosis of these stars is so strong, you’ll wish there could be a sequel.”

The Fault in Our Stars

Overall Metacritic rating (1-100): 69

Rotten Tomatoes: 83 percent

Rated: PG-13

Length: 125 minutes

Director: Josh Boone

Starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Woolff, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe

Distributor: Fox

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