a fault in our stars movie review

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The fault in our stars, common sense media reviewers.

Heartbreaking love story is a must-see for fans of the book.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie, like the book, has important messages a

In many YA/teen stories, the parents are portrayed

The way that cancer physically and emotionally aff

There's one love scene, and it's more emot

One use of "f--k," plus a couple of uses

Brands shown or featured include Apple (iPhone, Ma

Gus has a habit of putting an unlit cigarette in h

Parents need to know that The Fault in Our Stars is a tear-jerking love story about two deep-thinking teens with cancer and is based on one of the most beloved young adult books in recent history, by superstar author John Green. Due to the subject matter, it should come as no surprise that the movie can get…

Positive Messages

The movie, like the book, has important messages about the purpose of life: what it means to make your mark in the world and to be loved and remembered, how love can feel infinite even in a finite number of days, and how what afflicts you isn't what defines you. Most of the messages are about life, love, and relationships -- as well as literature and what it means to feel connected to the books we read. Gus' motto that you can't keep yourself from getting hurt -- but you can choose wisely about who you allow to hurt you -- is a powerful one.

Positive Role Models

In many YA/teen stories, the parents are portrayed as insensitive or even antagonistic, but Hazel's mom and dad are amazing: supportive, loving, and understanding of her needing time and space to be with Augustus. Hazel and Gus don't let their cancer keep them away from each other, and Gus especially feels strongly about surrounding himself with beauty and joy, particularly Hazel.

Violence & Scariness

The way that cancer physically and emotionally affects the teen characters is likely to disturb and upset viewers. A key character's death devastates other characters (as well as the audience). Characters egg another character's car.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

There's one love scene, and it's more emotional than physical in its depiction and doesn't feel gratuitous. It takes place between two teens who are both virgins, and this is their one and only time making love. The girl has her top off, but you just see her back and the boy's chest. Afterward they're shown sleeping in each other's arms. Also a few passionate kisses.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

One use of "f--k," plus a couple of uses of "s--tty," "a--hole," "douchepants," and "goddamn."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Brands shown or featured include Apple (iPhone, MacBook), Converse sneakers, Honda Accord, American Airlines, Barnes & Noble, Mercedes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Super Mario Bros, and a Mitsubishi sports coupe.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Gus has a habit of putting an unlit cigarette in his mouth and letting it dangle there, since unlit it can do no harm (he says it's a metaphor). He goes around with the same cigarette pack for most of the movie. Gus and Hazel drink champagne together twice. Author Peter Van Houten is a drunk and is nearly always shown with a drink or a flask in his hand. Hazel teases her parents that she should be allowed to be a regular teen with a fake ID so she can drink and "take" pot.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Fault in Our Stars is a tear-jerking love story about two deep-thinking teens with cancer and is based on one of the most beloved young adult books in recent history , by superstar author John Green . Due to the subject matter, it should come as no surprise that the movie can get emotionally intense -- especially when there's a devastating death. The central relationship is beautiful and mature and does lead to a love scene, which is handled tastefully for teen audiences (a girl's naked back and boy's chest are seen). Language is rare but does include one use of "f--k," as well as words like "s--t" and "a--hole." The teen characters drink champagne together, and a key adult supporting character is a drunk who's nearly always sipping from something. Gus also frequently puts unlit cigarettes in his mouth. As long as your teens are ready for all the feelings, sadness, and romance, this is a lovely film to watch with them, especially since Hazel's parents are portrayed so positively (they're supportive, loving, and understanding). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (38)
• Kids say (238)

Based on 38 parent reviews

Way overrated

Mature but nothing most teenagers couldn’t handle, what's the story.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS is about Hazel Grace Lancaster ( Shailene Woodley ), a 17-year-old book lover dealing with stage-four metastatic cancer that has spread to her lungs, requiring her to wear a cannula and carry around an oxygen cannister. Her worried but supportive parents ( Laura Dern , Sam Trammell ) encourage her to attend a local support group for teens with cancer; it's there that she meets Augustus Waters ( Ansel Elgort ), who can't keep his eyes off her. After group, a clearly interested Gus tells Hazel that she's beautiful and invites her to hang out with him and his best friend, Isaac ( Nat Wolff ). Hazel is attracted to Gus but is hesitant to start a relationship when she knows she's dying. Ever persistent, Gus sweeps Hazel off her feet when he gives up his one "cancer wish" to make her dream come true: traveling to Amsterdam to meet her favorite author.

Is It Any Good?

While The Fault in Our Stars isn't a word-for-word translation (nor should it be), it's an adaptation that does Green, Hazel, and Augustus justice. Anyone who's ever loved a book knows the hesitance and wariness that mingle with excitement when a beloved novel is turned into a big-screen production. There's a sense of panic that the director, screenwriter, and cast won't capture everything you love about the words and characters the author created. But fans of the book needn't worry. Woodley, a Golden Globe nominee and veteran of YA adaptations ( Divergent , The Spectacular Now ), delivers a gentle, wickedly smart Hazel, who feels like a grenade about to go off but eventually realizes that she does deserve to be loved by Gus, even if their future is uncertain.

But as lovely as Woodley is as Hazel, the movie belongs to newcomer Elgort (who co-starred as Woodley's brother in Divergent ), who has the tough job of being solicitous, sexy, smart, and sensitive all at the same time. He manages to pull it off beautifully, never letting the character spin out of control or seem false. The supporting characters also deliver laudable performances: Wolff as Gus' blind best friend, and Dern and Trammell as one of the most loving set of parents ever depicted on page or screen. Viewers will experience the wonder of falling in love but also the pain of knowing that someone you adore is dying. Still, to quote Hazel's favorite book, "pain demands to be felt." And feel it you will, which is more than okay.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about whether The Fault in Our Stars is a successful adaptation. What changes did the filmmakers make, and you do you understand why they made them? What parts of the movie captured the book best, and what parts of the book did you miss not seeing in the movie?

Do you prefer adaptations based on realistic fiction or based on genre fiction, like dystopian/paranormal stories? Why do you think there are so many YA adaptations in the works?

What do you think the author and filmmaker are trying to say about literature and our relationship to books? Do books and movies need a happy ending to make them good or worthwhile? What are some other tales that don't end as you expected but are still among your favorite movies or books?

How does the movie depict sex ? How is it different here from how it's often portrayed in other teen movies/books? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships.

Movie Details

• In theaters : June 6, 2014
• On DVD or streaming : September 16, 2014
• Cast : Shailene Woodley , Ansel Elgort , Willem Dafoe
• Director : Josh Boone
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
• Genre : Romance
• Topics : Book Characters
• Run time : 125 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : thematic elements, some sexuality and brief strong language
• Last updated : February 22, 2024

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‘the fault in our stars’: film review.

Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort star in Josh Boone's adaptation of John Green's best-selling young adult novel.

By Justin Lowe

Justin Lowe

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The Fault in Our Stars Woodley Elgort Walking - H 2014

With interest in adapting John Green’s fourth novel running high even before its 2012 debut atop The New York Times best-seller list, Twilight producers Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen managed to snatch up the film rights to the hugely popular narrative, which may have been a bit of a “be careful what you wish for” moment. With the book’s millions of adoring fans eagerly anticipating the movie’s release, a distinct risk of blow-back was practically built in to the project.

Fortunately, director Josh Boone and his filmmaking team appear to have minimized the downside, in part by casting fast-rising star Shailene Woodley in the lead, along with her Divergent franchise co-star Ansel Elgort . Both are likely to be strong selling points with the film’s youth-skewing target audience, which is being further softened up by a robust marketing campaign and Green’s own substantial social media presence. With the onset of summer vacation and few similar distractions in theaters at the outset, The Fault in Our Stars should perform strongly out of the gate, with the potential to show significant staying power in the weeks following.

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If any teenager can reasonably be described as “ordinary,” then 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster (Woodley) is far from it. A cancer survivor since the age of 13, she’s fully in possession of both keen intelligence and sharp wit, if not her health – a challenging combination for a kid who could clearly do with a few more friends than she actually has. Instead, her most constant companions are the oxygen tank connected to the breathing tube that supports her seriously compromised lungs, along with her concerned mother, Frannie ( Laura Dern ), and protective father, Michael ( Sam Trammell ).

Hazel gets a chance to branch out when, at the urging of both her mom and her doctor, she joins an often lame though occasionally amusing church-based cancer-survivor support group, where she meets 18-year-old Augustus “Gus” Waters (Elgort), an equally precocious teen with a rather more constructive outlook than Hazel’s. Despite losing a leg to cancer, his disease is in remission and he’s dreaming of new ways to conquer the world, along with his best friend Isaac ( Nat Wolff ), who’s battling the affliction as well. Irreverent rather than cynical, he freely shares that he intends to “live an extraordinary life” and bonds with Hazel over her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction , written by Dutch-American author Peter Van Houten ( Willem Dafoe ), which just happens to be about living with cancer.

Hazel is borderline obsessed with contacting the elusive Van Houten, but he never responds to her missives. So it’s a bit shocking and even overwhelming when the writer’s assistant replies to an email from Gus soliciting information about Van Houten’s book. Then Hazel gets a message from Van Houten himself, and the author invites her to visit if she’s ever in Amsterdam. Hazel and Gus, who often insists on calling her “Hazel Grace,” quickly cook up a plan to make the trip, but it’s nixed by Hazel’s doctors and parents, concerned that the stress of the journey will strain her lungs and disrupt the experimental cancer-drug treatment she’s dependent on for her survival.

Meanwhile, Gus is falling hard for Hazel, who is fairly smitten herself, but as her condition worsens, she pulls back, telling Gus “I’m a grenade and one day I’m going to explode and obliterate everything in my wake.” Undeterred, he counters that her withdrawal doesn’t lessen his affection for her, and when he manages to find an unexpected method of funding their travel, the plan is back on again. As both teens face suddenly critical health issues, however, the outcome of both the trip and their increasingly romantic relationship becomes appreciably more uncertain.

The greatest strengths of the film clearly come from Green’s novel, which resolutely refuses to become a cliched cancer drama, creating instead two vibrant, believable young characters filled with humor and intelligence, both facing complex questions and issues unimaginable even to people twice their age. Turning the screenwriting over to adaptation experts Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber has preserved the distinctly literate tone of the book, even if they do occasionally deliver scenes that feel overwrought.

The script makes an excellent fit for Woodley, whose feature film career really took off with The Descendants and The Spectacular Now, two similarly smart, self-aware films. Woodley’s wise and accomplished take on Hazel Lancaster will resonate with those inclined to view the world with a somewhat skeptical point of view, although they may face similar resistance to the prospect of romance entering her life. By dint of ample charm and considerable insight, Elgort’s Gus represents more than a foil for Hazel’s self-doubt – he offers her the opportunity to mold all of her hope and frustration into a fully three-dimensional, transcendent emotional experience, whether she wants to call that “love” or not.

As Hazel’s protective but practical parents , Dern and Trammell display a realistic degree of concern without completely smothering her, and when crisis erupts, their instinctual compassion quickly restores calm. Wolff, whose character loses both eyes to cancer, provides some suitably dark humor , although it’s left to Dafoe as the acerbic author whose young daughter succumbed to the disease to deftly deliver the film’s least reassuring perspective.

Boone’s appropriately light touch emphasizes the underlying literary material, foregrounding the performances with occasional underplayed visual humor and reserving stylistic nuance for more contemplative scenes, attractively framed by cinematographer Ben Richardson. Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott’s score somewhat literally underlines the overly insistent, folky-leaning soundtrack selections from the likes of Tom Odell, Lykke Li and Ray LaMontagne.

Production company: Temple Hill Entertainment Cast: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Nat Wolff, Willem Dafoe, Lotte Verbeek, Mike Birbiglia Director: Josh Boone Screenwriters : Scott Neustadter , Michael H. Weber Producers: Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen Executive producers: Michele Imperato Stabile, Isaac Klausner Director of photography: Ben Richardson Production designer: Molly Hughes Costume designer: Mary Claire Hannan Editor: Robb Sullivan Music: Mike Mogis, Nate Walcott

Rated PG-13, 125 minutes

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• REVIEW: <I>The Fault in Our Stars</i> Earns Its Big Fat Tears

REVIEW: The Fault in Our Stars Earns Its Big Fat Tears

H azel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) and Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort) don’t have absolutely everything in common. For example, her favorite book is the death-drenched An Imperial Affliction , by the mysterious Peter van Houten. His favorite: the novelization of a video game he loves, Insurgent 2 . She’s deep and depressed, he’s all blithe bonhomie.

But both are cancer teens. Augustus, the former basketball prodigy, lost a leg to osteosarcoma; Hazel, with what started as thyroid cancer and has since spread geometrically, lugs around an apparatus the size of a fire extinguisher to pump air into her dilapidated lungs. And if their choice in literature differs, they are together as the heroes of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars , the YA best-seller that is now a pretty fine movie.

(READ: Lev Grossman on John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars )

An adolescent take on the old film weepie Love Story (“What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died?”), Green’s book managed to be both bitingly sarcastic and unashamedly uplifting. Having lived with cancer for half of her 16 years, Hazel has developed an emotional auto-immune system: mockery. She greets anyone in authority — her parents, her doctors, the guy who runs the group-therapy session at a local church — with an eyebrow raised in cynical judgment. She has fully earned the attitude held by many teens: that they’re on a desperate adventure adults simply can’t understand. That adage is true for Hazel, who is likely to die before she can legally buy a beer.

Her doctor has advised doubling her meds, but the true antidote is a strong dose of luh-uv. And Augustus is the sweetest Dr. Feelgood. His seeming ease with his prosthesis, and with what doctors tell him is an 85% chance of beating the disease, complements her dour belief: “Depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.” His Candide and her Cassandra are the perfect match. And what is drama — all drama, really — but the story of beautiful people with horrible problems?

(SEE: A clip from The Fault in Our Stars )

Hazel’s and Augustus’s mutually ticking Doomsday clocks compel them to pack the luster of a lifetime — a first love, a trip to Europe, a meeting with Hazel’s favorite author, a last love — into what may be their only summer. Skeptical Hazel comes alive at the innocent touch of Augustus, whose charm is as urgent as it is benign. He’s like a pop record that has just three minutes to raise your spirits or break your heart. For Hazel, Augustus does both.

They may weave the same magic on moviegoers, so smartly does the film enfold this loving couple in the cocoon of evanescent intimacy. In the screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber — whose scripts for (50o) Days of Summer and The Spectacular Now also apotheosized the angst and ecstasy of young love — Hazel and Augustus are all either of them needs. The movie gives them exactly one friend, Isaac (Nat Wolff), for misanthropic commit relief, and cannily excludes Hazel’s parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell) from the best parts of her luscious, endangered world. Though they have become expert at fretful optimism and pre-grieving, the parents can be chaperones but not confidants. And they must be denied access to their daughter’s tree house of love.

(READ: Corliss’s review of (500) Days of Summer )

Movies about adolescence as a secret garden, where only misfits fit, bloomed in the 1960s, beginning with David and Lisa : Keir Dullea as the boy who won’t let people touch him, and Janet Margolin as the girl with dissociative identity disorder. Otto Preminger’s Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon turned the duo into a trio: a literally and emotionally scarred young woman Liza Minnelli), an epileptic (Robert Moore) and a gay paraplegic (Ken Howard). Love Story , in 1970, streamlined these mental and physical disabilities into the plot wallop of leukemia, which befalls poor girl Ali MacGraw as her rich young husband Ryan O’Neal sobs and endures. All these decades later, The Fault in Our Stars sets the most toxic misery among the most adorable company.

Fault has a few. A meeting in New Amsterdam with Hazel’s favorite author (Willem Dafoe) seems a bilious detour with an improbable payoff. The trip also affords the filmmakers an egregious scene in the Anne Frank House, where a Jewish girl’s descent into the Holocaust is straight-facedly compared to a teen’s cancer. No, we have to say; they’re different. To paraphrase Hazel’s maxim on infinities: some atrocities are bigger than other atrocities.

(READ: Roger Rosenblatt on Anne Frank, one of TIME’s 100 People of the 20th Century )

Yet Hazel and Augustus will live in film lore because of the young actors who play them. Woodley, who graduated from supporting roles (George Clooney’s rebellious daughter in The Descendants ) and indie leads (the bo0kworm in The Spectacular Now ) to her own YA movie franchise ( Divergent ), has the gift of acting internally: she makes you watch her watch something, lets you read the mind of her character like a good book. Often photographed in dermatological closeup, Woodley’s face is its own engrossing movie — an autumnal symphony of darker and lighter browns. She makes Hazel the ideal narrator and receptive audience to Augustus’ agreeable showmanship.

Elgort, who can also be seen as Woodley’s brother in the Divergent films, has a natural screen appeal and suave chemistry with Woodley. He could almost make smitten girls in the audience think it would be worth getting cancer to meet such a paragon. And 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.

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The Fault in Our Stars Review

Cry-vergent..

The natural Shailene Woodley and a handful of solid supporting performances can't keep The Fault in Our Stars from succumbing to the toxic effects of sap.

In This Article

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The Fault in Our Stars Reviews

The subject matter — a pair of teenage cancer sufferers meet and fall in love — could have been mawkish mush, but there’s a sharp, abrasive wit and anger that tempers the tear-jerking with humour.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2023

It actually presents us with situations and a relationship that feels genuine yet uncertain because of the dark cloud hanging over it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

My biggest complaint about the whole experience was being splashed by the tears of my fellow moviegoers. Bring a towel.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 1, 2021

The reason that The Fault in Our Stars works so well is that its main draw (the teenage love story) is tied so expertly to its emotional core (Hazel's relationship with her parents).

Full Review | Jan 21, 2021

The winning combo of the shamelessly melodramatic and the slyly mischievous that powers the movie owes much to yet another pitch-perfect lead performance from Woodley.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2020

Sadly, in Hollywood's hands all the things that made John Green's taut, touching and terrific 2012 novel transcend generation gaps have been jettisoned in favour of a hyperglycaemic tale of two star-crossed (cancer-riddled) teens.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 10, 2020

In other words, this is real. If anyone tells you differently, they haven't a clue.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 7, 2020

In a laudable attempt to seem heartfelt without blatant manipulation, the film generally succeeds, thanks especially to a winning performance from Shailene Woodley.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 30, 2019

It's charming, well-written, superbly acted.

Full Review | Original Score: 9.4/10 | Aug 8, 2019

Heartfelt, sincere and altogether rather wonderful, The Fault in Our Stars will enchant audiences and leave behind very few dry eyes in its wake.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 14, 2019

It all felt kind of manipulative and corny.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Apr 30, 2019

Woodley and Elgort are gifted in that they exude intelligence, thoughtfulness, and savvy, making smart dialogue sound smart, the corniest lines sound terribly romantic and natural.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 28, 2019

Under the assured direction of Josh Boone, the film earns its emotions without grand manipulative gestures, and finds its heart through the fantastic cast and an effortless and appealing intimacy between the characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 26, 2019

Dafoe is, as expected, solid in the role, but I felt the storyline on the whole could have been a little tighter. That's a minor fault however, in a script whose stars make it all worthwhile.

Full Review | Mar 5, 2019

The talented cast and crew enhance what is already some pretty good material, making "Fault" a teenage tearjerker that doesn't fall into a typical Hollywood weeper formula.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Feb 1, 2019

It's sweet, cathartic and a bit beautiful. Just make sure you bring Kleenex.

Full Review | Jan 31, 2019

In the end, this adaptation may not be all that different than effective screen tearjerkers of the past, but in staying true to its source material, its infinity is bound to be a little bigger than most.

Full Review | Nov 20, 2018

It will certainly be a tearjerker for some, but the film's final triumphant message means that you shouldn't be too depressed when you leave the theatre.

Full Review | Original Score: 8.5/10 | Nov 1, 2018

The two-hour and five-minute running time of continuous sadness and unending pearls of wisdom made this viewer disconnect from the characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 21, 2018

The problem may be that The Fault in Our Stars is based on a book by John Green; this certainly wouldn't be the first time a strong literary narrative had troubles translating to the screen.

Full Review | Nov 28, 2017

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• DVD & Streaming

The Fault in Our Stars

• Comedy , Drama , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

• June 6, 2014
• Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace Lancaster; Ansel Elgort as Augustus Waters; Nat Wolff as Isaac; Laura Dern as Frannie Lancaster; Sam Trammell as Michael Lancaster; Willem Dafoe as Peter Van Houten; Lotte Verbeek as Lidewij

Home Release Date

• September 16, 2014

Distributor

• 20th Century Fox

Movie Review

They called it a miracle.

It came when Hazel Grace was 13, as her young life was being devoured by cancer. Her parents and doctors watched helplessly as the girl—bald, bedridden, shackled by tubes—slipped slowly from them.

And then she rallied. Recovered a bit. She was put on an experimental drug that, to everyone’s surprise, worked. Hazel survived. And now, four years later, she’s still doing it.

But even miracles in this broken world aren’t always what we’d like them to be. Yes, Hazel is breathing, but weakly, painfully. She’s tethered to an oxygen tank, unable to last for more than a few seconds without it. Her world has grown small, almost claustrophobic. Sometimes she sits and stares at the old, ratty swing set her father built for her in happier times, remembering what it was like to swing and slide and run.

She cannot run now. She can barely climb stairs. She’s still dying, she believes. Just in slow motion.

Her parents think Hazel is depressed and send her to a cancer support group, hoping she’ll make some friends. And while Hazel hates the group, she does meet Augustus there. Gus knows something about cancer himself, having lost most of a leg to the disease not long ago. More importantly, he knows something about life and living. And when he asks to hear Hazel’s story, he doesn’t want to know about her cancer story, he wants to know about her personal one—what she loves and hates, what she hopes and fears.

So she blurts out her love for the book An Imperial Affliction —a story about cancer that ends in mid-sentence when the narrator, Anna, either dies or grows too sick to write. As a literary device, it works: Life often ends inconveniently with so much undone. Those with cancer know that better than most. But the ending’s left Hazel feeling unsettled, wondering, What happens to Anna’s mother? Her friends? What of the Tulip Man? Alas, there are no answers. The author, Peter Van Houten, is a recluse and never answers fan mail.

Gus, of course, refuses to accept defeat. He does a little sleuthing, finds the author and writes to him. Shockingly, the man writes back—insinuating that their answers await in Amsterdam.

It’s practically a miracle, almost as stunning as Hazel’s remission, a surprise too extraordinary to be believed. But the world is no less broken, Hazel no less sick. And sometimes even miracles aren’t what we’d like them to be.

Positive Elements

Death hangs over The Fault in Our Stars like the stars themselves, permeating every character and every interaction. And yet in the midst of mortality we see at least a sliver of something alive. Even in pain, hope can be found, we’re told. Even in disappointment, meaning comes.

Loving someone, truly, through severe sickness, isn’t easy. We see others fail under the pressure. But no matter what circumstances bring, Gus and Hazel care for each other throughout, often giving something of themselves in the process.

They’re both heroic characters in their own ways, facing disease and circumstance with as much grace and courage as they can muster. Hazel’s last few years have been something of a living sacrifice as she tries to cushion the blow of the inevitable pain that’s coming for her parents. Gus wants to live a life of meaning—one filled with adventure and importance, so that when he does go, he’s known and loved by millions.

There’s a little merit in both of those strategies. But when Gus and Hazel get together, they get a better sense of what the beauty of life is really about. Hazel moves beyond responsibility and finds joy in her difficult life. And when she learns that, should she die, her parents won’t die with her, that they’re making plans for a life without her, she treats it as the best of gifts: the idea that she won’t necessarily destroy everyone around her. And Gus, through Hazel, comes to understand that it’s not so critical to be loved by throngs, as long as you’ve loved by and have changed the lives of a few. Or even just one.

Hazel finds solace while visiting the house of Anne Frank, the diary-writing Jewish girl killed in the Nazi Holocaust. “Where there is hope, there is life,” we hear Anne’s words playing in the background. “Think of all the beauty in everything around you. And be happy.”

Unlike most teenage love stories, parents come across pretty well here. While Hazel and her folks have their moments of tension, there’s no question about how much they love one another.

Spiritual Elements

Hazel’s support group takes place in the basement of an Episcopal church and is led by a cancer survivor who’s a fervent—and, in Hazel’s eyes, goofy—Christian. He sings a song that includes the words, “Christ is your friend and He’ll be there to the end.” And he rolls out a carpet depicting the Savior, telling participants standing on it that they’re “literally in the heart of Jesus.” As the story proceeds, then, the idea of literally being in the heart of Jesus, when they’re literally in a church basement, is sometimes mocked.

Christianity is treated more reverentially during a funeral, wherein a priest reads Psalm 23 and people say a prayer. (Still, a much-loathed antagonist crashes the funeral and lets loose a quip about having to “fake pray.”)

Both Hazel and Gus think a lot about what might come after death. Gus fears oblivion in this life while hanging on to a belief in at least some sort of afterlife, saying he wants to crash his own funeral as a ghost. Hazel’s more cynical, telling Gus she doesn’t believe in angels but she may believe in God, and while she’d like to believe in an afterlife she’d need more proof first. Someone suggests that her life has no meaning and her disease is a “failed experiment in mutation.”

Sexual Content

Eighteen-year-old Gus and 17-year-old Hazel are attracted to each other from the beginning. And while Hazel tries to keep him at arm’s length for a while, their platonic relationship goes kablooey in Amsterdam. The two share a tender kiss in Anne Frank’s house. Then they tumble into Gus’ hotel room and have sex.

The scene shows Hazel and Gus taking off each other’s shirts, and she undoes her bra. (We see her from the back.) They caress and kiss as they give in to their passion. Afterwards, both are seen mostly naked, with the sheet covering only the most critical body parts. And it’s worth noting that much is made of Gus’ previously virginal “condition” … and that this union is seen as the perfect end to it. The couple cuddles and kisses elsewhere.

Gus’ friend Isaac makes out with his girlfriend in a parking lot, and we see him kneading her (clothed) breast. Later, Isaac, who has lost both eyes to cancer, comments on the size of another girl’s breasts. “I’m blind, but I’m not that blind,” he says.

We see Hazel’s mom wearing just a bath towel. Hazel cracks a joke about getting herpes.

Violent Content

Grief and anger cause Isaac to egg his ex’s house and car (with lots of help from Gus and Hazel), also to demolish (with permission) some of Gus’ sports trophies. Gus smashes a glass. Gus’ favorite book is based on his favorite video game—one filled, he admits (and we briefly see), with violence and blood.

Cancer is a violent disease, and we see its ravages here. Someone dies from it. When Isaac, Hazel and Gus are all together, Gus quips that they have four eyes, five legs and two-and-a-half working sets of lungs between them.

Crude or Profane Language

One very forceful f-word is used as a sexually derived insult. Also, a half-dozen s-words and a smattering of other bad words, including “a‑‑,” “b‑‑ch,” “b‑‑tard” and “h‑‑‑.” God’s name is used as an expletive about 30 times, twice paired with “d‑‑n.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Gus clamps an unlit cigarette in his mouth as a metaphor—allowing the instrument of death to sit between his teeth, powerless. (We see him with it throughout the story.) He and Hazel are served champagne during a fancy dinner in Amsterdam (where it’s legal for 16-year-olds to drink “adult” beverages that contain less than 15% alcohol). Both teens are very enthusiastic about its taste, and Gus tells the waiter they’ll need a bit more of it. They pop open another bottle during a sad picnic back in the States.

It’s clear that a man Gus and Hazel meet is an alcoholic. He asks his assistant to bring him another drink before he’s even had breakfast, and he offers the kids Scotch. We see him regularly taking swigs from a flask.

Hazel jokes about getting a fake ID and “taking” pot.

Other Negative Elements

We’re asked to watch as someone is overcome with nausea.

“Apparently, the world is not a wish-granting factory,” Gus says sadly.

It’s a truth we all know. Even we Christians, whom the movie portrays as fairly naive, see that all too well. We wish it was. We want our happily ever after endings. But we know that happiness on earth is fickle and fleeting.

In The Fault in Our Stars (based on John Green’s best-selling young adult novel) we find, indeed, that the stars haven’t been especially kind to these two lovers. They don’t have the time we’d wish for them—time to get jobs and have kids, to grow up and grow old. They’ve been given a finite number of days together—and even those days are filled with the looming problems and anxiety that cancer inevitably brings. And whenever it seems like something wonderful might finally happen, it goes awry. Each star they cling to, including each other, has a fault inside—a scratch, a split.

But even given such faulty stars, the two find joy and fulfillment. They have each other. They’re loved. They live. Yes, maybe their days are built on borrowed time, but it’s better than no time, and Hazel confesses that she’s “grateful for our little infinity.”

“You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world,” Hazel says. “but you do get to choose who hurts you.” That’s a strangely powerful statement, I think.

Sadly, one fault Hazel and Gus share is that they don’t always make the wisest of choices. They sleep together. And they prefer to see themselves as pawns of the stars, not beloved by those stars’ Creator.

This isn’t an anti-Christian film, exactly—just spiritually uncertain. Nor is it saturated in sex or depravity. This isn’t a bad movie, really. In many ways, it’s quite good.

But here’s the thing: Because it is quite good—a persuasive, emotional story with strong, positive messages about sacrifice, hard truths and true love—the bad stuff can come off as more persuasive than usual. It’s harder to see a loving God yourself when the characters you grow to care about can’t, or won’t. It’s harder to object to premarital sex while weepily watching Hazel and Gus—teens who might never get the chance to ever have sex again—get so much pleasure and fulfillment from it.

The Fault in Our Stars is, I suppose, a little like its title. For all its sparkly power, it has scratches and splits. We know immediately when a movie like  Noah drifts away from its moorings. But it’s hard to see a film with crystal-clear eyes when you’re always dabbing them with a Kleenex.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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‘The Fault In Our Stars’ review: A terrific addition to the canon of doomed young love

From " Romeo and Juliet " to " Love Story ," doomed love is one of the great themes of literature and cinema, its heady brew of sex, death, commitment and mortality a time-honored way for teenagers and young adults to process their evolving sense of how those forces will play out in their own lives.

" The Fault in Our Stars " is a terrific addition to that canon — a wise, warm, funny and touching romantic drama about two teenage cancer patients who bond over a shared illness and tough-but-sensitive world views. Sixteen-year-old Hazel (Shailene Woodley) is in stage 4 of her cancer, which has reached her lungs, forcing her to lug an oxygen tank everywhere she goes. Gus (Ansel Elgort), 18, has had his leg amputated, but is now cancer free. "I'm a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend," he tells the leader of the support group where they meet.

That scene — during which Gus fixes a sustained, unabashedly fascinated stare on Hazel as she uncomfortably averts her gaze — immediately establishes Gus as a charismatic, supremely confident force to be reckoned with. As “The Fault in Our Stars” unfolds, their budding romance reveals inescapable differences between them. He’s an inveterate optimist, believing that life and death have a point and that his purpose on Earth is to leave a bright and burning legacy. Hazel’s more skeptical, if not cynical: She’s far less convinced of things like higher meanings. But as time goes on, it’s clear that her doubt masks an overwhelming concern for those she’ll leave behind, especially her parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell). “I’m a grenade,” she says at one point. “One day I’m going to explode, and I feel it’s my responsibility to minimize the casualties.”

Such forthright, unsentimental dialogue is balanced throughout "The Fault in Our Stars" by an irreverent, almost giddy, sense of lightness: Hazel and Gus crack wise over "cancer perks" and Make-A-Wish-type charities, casting mutually knowing glances to each other when Hazel visits Gus and finds his parents' framed "encouragements" throughout the house. 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. But, as Hazel informs the audience at the film's outset, this story won't be neatly ended "with an apology and a Peter Gabriel song."

In fact, and unsurprisingly, the story ends sadly, but also with a soaring sense of emotional fulfillment. At one point, the young couple — chaperoned by Hazel’s eternally bright-eyed mom — visit Amsterdam to conduct a literary treasure hunt revolving around a novel they’re obsessed with. Against that gorgeous backdrop, they get to enjoy the sensual pleasures of budding affection, made all the more vivid by its somber undertones. A visit to Anne Frank’s house at first seems to strike an unnecessarily maudlin and strident tone, but director Josh Boone builds it into something powerful and profound, as Hazel breathlessly climbs the tiny staircases to Frank’s cramped quarters. At that moment, “The Fault in Our Stars” is less about young love than about the heroic moral search for meaning in suffering.

To its credit, "The Fault in Our Stars" never loses sight of the couple at its center, allowing it to transcend its nominal subject (cancer) and become just a great teenage love story. By now Woodley has proven her bona fides in such similarly serious-minded films as " The Descendants " and " The Spectacular Now ." The revelation here is Elgort — last seen playing Woodley's brother in " Divergent " — who brings real subtlety and ease to a character whose vulnerability can always be felt peeking through the studied bravado. (He is essentially playing a guy playing another guy — in this case, Gus playing the brave, quirky cancer-kid.) They're an enormously appealing couple, whether they're joking, fighting, flirting or seeing each other through their most dire moments of distress.

Although “The Fault in Our Stars” takes a few genuinely startling turns — including a breathtakingly cruel encounter with a grouchy supporting character played by Willem Dafoe — the film doesn’t veer too widely from the parameters of tragic melodrama, a formula that Boone handles with sensitivity and restrained good taste. What’s more, it offers its core young audience the bracing, even exhilarating suggestion that love isn’t just about finding someone worth dying for, but someone who makes life worth living. For that alone, “The Fault in Our Stars” achieves that rare feat of eliciting as many cheers as tears.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains thematic elements, some sexuality and brief profanity. 125 minutes

Related : "The Fault in Our Stars" by the numbers: Just how huge is this movie going to be?

Author John Green spends his days focused on devastating topics. He wouldn’t trade it for anything.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS Review

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Glenn Close Leads This Movie Adaptation of One of Agatha Christie’s Favorite Mysteries

The 13 best fantasy movies of the last 5 years, ranked, this classic western is john wayne's true swan song — and it's not 'the shootist'.

Cancer is usually treated as a battle.  Words like "fight" and "survive" are used.  We use these violent words because cancer causes pain and death.  Words like "humor" and "love" rarely enter the conversation unless they're provided in the most mawkish context.  These words want to turn a blind eye to suffering and instead dance around in sunshine and rainbows while tumors metastasize and organs fail.  Josh Boone 's The Fault in Our Stars attempts to embrace the positive by smirking right back at cancer.  It turns cancer into a club where only members know how to truly live, and that life on the inside has a unique set of values.  Although the movie can sometimes get lost in its fluffy fatalism, The Fault in Our Stars still manages to tug at the heartstrings thanks largely to the mature, charming, shining performances from it lead actors.

Hazel ( Shailene Woodley ) is a terminal cancer patient who reluctantly attends a cancer survivors' support group.  There she meets the incredibly charming, confident, and handsome Augustus "Gus" Waters ( Ansel Elgort ), whose cancer is in remission after having his leg amputated the year before.  He quickly sweeps Hazel off her feet, and the two teenagers bond over understanding the cancer community, the near-brushes with death, and a unique perspective on the absurdity of life.  As their romance grows, Hazel must grapple with her feelings for Augustus and her fears about how her death might affect the loved ones she leaves behind.

Boone quickly establishes his film as a rejection of sappy cancer stories by having Hazel's opening narration call out these kinds of movies, and then launch into the reality of life as a young person with cancer.  But the real opening salvo comes when we meet the support group's leader, Patrick ( Mike Birbiglia ), a well-meaning buffoon who tries to put a happy, sing-song tune on having cancer.  It's a sign that it's okay to laugh in a movie where young people are slowly dying, and that there is appropriate comedy other than gallows humor.

But The Fault in Our Stars never wants to be cynical, and that's where Gus comes in.  Gus is, in some senses, a "Manic Pixie Dream Boy", a dreamboat who can confidently tell a girl he just met that he's using a metaphor when he holds an unlit cigarette between his lips because it doesn't have the power to kill him unless he lights it.  It's either one step shy or one step beyond telling someone to marvel at your forced affectation.  Gus also always knows the right thing to say, he's rarely vulnerable, and his whole purpose is to get Hazel to come out of her shell and realize the value of life no matter how short it may be.

But dammit, Elgort is too damn charming.  In John Green 's novel, Gus' charm is met by Hazel's wariness.  The book is from her point of view, so her inner resistance counterbalances his outer whimsy.  In the movie, Hazel's narration is limited, and so we're given no choice but to completely give into Gus' personality.  We have to fall for Gus like Hazel does and Elgort makes it easy.  His comic timing is excellent, his smile is so easy, and there's just enough of an "Aw, shucks" attitude to temper the character's precociousness.

He also has a perfect partner in the immensely talented Woodley.  It would have been easy for Woodley to lapse into a retread of her character Aimee from The Spectacular Now —shy, sheltered girl who falls for an outgoing, confident guy.  But Hazel, although she shares some of Aimee's circumstances, feels like a completely different person.  She possesses the knowingness of someone who's had to grow up too fast because her life could be cut short.  Her trepidation comes not from being sheltered as much as it comes from a constant reminder of her own mortality, symbolized by the oxygen container she drags around since her lungs are weak.  Even though Woodley's 22-years-old, there's no actress better at playing real teenagers.

And yet the movie always feels like it's skipping across the surface.  Hazel tries to keep Gus grounded, but he ends up lifting her and us away from the reality that's necessary to keep The Fault in Our Stars from being a sappy melodrama.  It's one thing to make audiences cry.  Given the right formula, it's actually pretty easy.  The hard part is earning those tears, and the movie is always a little too eager to drawn them out.

Hazel's concerned with the people she'll be leave behind when she dies.  It's why she's obsessed with finding out what happened to the characters of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction .  But the movie would rather keep an eye on impending death because where there's love and cancer, the grave isn't too far away.  Again, it's a formula, and while The Fault in Our Stars can play that formula well, it does so at the expense of emotional complexities.  The story is willing to acknowledge the unglamorous parts of a doomed-love story, but never fully embrace them.

Instead, the movie will occasionally get up in the grand gestures at the cost of reality.  In one terribly ill-conceived scene, the story attempts to be life-affirming as Hazel and Gus kiss inside the Anne Frank's house.  I can understand the rationale behind the scene: Anne Frank died young and so two young people in love shouldn't waste a moment expressing that love.  But it's a bit much to do it inside a solemn location like Anne Frank's house.  That's about one step away from making out in a Holocaust museum.  The scene becomes even more jarring when the other visitors applaud the young couple's public display of affection.

The Fault in Our Stars doesn't want to romanticize cancer, but it does have a tendency to fall in love with romance.  When Gus asks Hazel what her story is and she begins to launch into an explanation about her diagnosis, he stops her and says, "Not your 'cancer story'.  Your real story."  The movie feints at truthfulness even though it occasionally flirts with becoming painfully twee.  It wants to paint these two teenagers as real people, but the only real one is Hazel.  The other is a dream, but the combination works.  One side is grounded and the other uplifting, and while it may not fully embrace the truthfulness Hazel claims at the beginning, it weighs enough to put a lump in our throats.

• Shailene Woodley

The Fault In Our Stars Review

19 Jun 2014

126 minutes

Fault In Our Stars, The

A teen cancer drama like a rite of passage for a former child actress these days: Dakota Fanning did it in Now Is Good; now Shailene Woodley stars as a cancer patient with a similar desire to live life to the full while she can. But this isn’t all about a dying girl popping her cherry: it’s actually love interest Gus (Ansel Elgort) who’s the virgin here. That’s just one of the refreshing spots of table-turning in what could have been a formulaic Hollywood tear-jerker. It’s also funny: Gus and Hazel indulge in gallows humour rather than self-pity, though their resilience doesn’t stretch to unlikely levels.

While 16 year-old Hazel narrates, this also takes a look at the effect her condition has on her family. Laura Dern puts in a sensitive performance as the kindly, smiling mother fighting back the tears, torn between indulging her daughter and protecting her. Like the (bestselling) source novel by John Green, The Fault In Our Stars explores characters as much by what they don’t say as what they do. Hazel’s parents’ strained faces speak volumes; as do Gus’ cavalier jokes that help him avoid the truth.

Performances are likable and the casting’s on the money: Elgort (Woodley’s brother in Divergent) has a flirtatious sparkle while not an obvious hunk, while Woodley maintains the fresh-faced girl-next-door look that should win over the young target market. It’s also quite brave for a mass-market film to feature a heroine wearing a breathing tube throughout.

The Fault In Our Stars isn’t for cynics and it has its credibility-stretching moments, from the actions of cantankerous author Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe) to various scrubbed-up hospital scenes. It’s chiefly a fantasy: a romanticised tale of a short life that brushes the nasty stuff under the carpet. But it does what it does well — and that includes bringing a tear to the eye.

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Dave Bautista's New Assassin Movie Is The Anti-John Wick The World Needs Right Now

Cillian murphy's 2 upcoming projects are breaking an unwritten oscar winner's rule, all 10 hitman & assassin movies referenced in glen powell’s hit man, fans of the book as well as uninitiated moviegoers looking for a thought-provoking character piece will find plenty to enjoy and ponder in boone's latest film..

The Fault in Our Stars  follows sixteen year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) who has fought thyroid cancer since she was thirteen. After the disease spreads to her lungs, Hazel entered an experimental study to help battle the cancer but, in spite of minor improvements to her overall comfort, she remains hooked to an oxygen tank, is easily tired, and, as a result, lives a hermitic life. Hazel fills her days with books, reality TV, and studying - until her mother (Laura Dern) pressures Hazel to join a support group for young cancer patients. Reluctant to cause her parents additional stress, Hazel agrees to attend the meetings.

The sessions are a chore - until she meets osteosarcoma survivor Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort). Augustus is living cancer free, after doctors amputated his right leg, but attends the group in support of his best friend, Isaac (Nat Wolff), who is days away from an operation that will leave him blind. Following the meeting, Hazel and Augustus strike up a fast and flirty friendship but as Augustus encourages Hazel to break out of her shell, challenging her to live  before it is too late, she is reminded of her biggest fear: she's a grenade, terminally ill, and when her day comes, she wants to protect everyone from the blast - even if it means holding someone she is growing to love at arm's length.

The Fault in Our Stars film was adapted by writing partners Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber ( (500) Days of Summer ) from author John Green's 2012 young adult novel of the same name - with Josh Boone ( Stuck in Love ) sitting in the director's chair. Understandably, discerning moviegoers have become doubtful of young adult novel adaptations - following a string of hit or miss Hollywood cash grabs in the genre. That said, even though certain aspects of The Fault in Our Stars rely on teenage romance tropes, clever directing choices from Boone, challenging performances, and an uncompromising premise, elevate the final film far above its melodramatic contemporaries.

While the plot centers on a tale of star-crossed lovers, The Fault in Our Stars is in fact a surprisingly authentic and moving story of life in the shadow of death. Some viewers might be put-off by a story of teenage love but the narrative strives for much larger insight than simply following the ups and downs of a budding romance. From the opening moments, it's clear  The Fault in Our Stars seeks to be a spotlight for the truth (both the victories and the horrors) of those who have been touched, either directly or indirectly, by cancer (among other illnesses). While Hazel laments that her life isn't normal, she provides the foundation for a more poignant tale of what it means to love and be loved.

Following critical and commercial success in The Descendants and Divergent , respectively, Shailene Woodley offers her sharpest performance to date. Beyond the challenge of depicting terminal illness with responsibility and authenticity, Woodley proves she can make teenage drama credible - in a way that should resonate with all viewers, regardless of age. It's a brave performance, not because she's once again playing a beloved book character; because the message of the movie is important - especially for women and men on the verge of adulthood. For those touched by tragedy, the struggles of Hazel (as well as her friends) will hit close to home but her actions and outlook offer a unique perspective on illness and death - one that might even provide comfort to audience members that have struggled (or will struggle) with loss.

Of course, that perspective grows out of Hazel's encounters with Augustus and, after mostly understated roles in Carrie  and  Divergent , Ansel Elgort is a scene stealer in The Fault in Our Stars . The character offers a fun and exuberant juxtaposition to Hazel, often embodying the larger themes and messages of the film, without resorting to caricature or violating the movie's hard-hitting representation of life as a sick teenager. In the young adult genre, where young men are often presented as standoffish, muscly hunks, it's refreshing to see a male hero that expresses his love through thoughtful deeds - not fist fights and eye-rolling dialogue.

A strong cast of supporting players join Woodley and Elgort, including film veterans Laura Dern and Sam Trammell as Hazel's parents, Mike Birbiglia playing the leader of Hazel's support group, as well as Willem Dafoe in the role of reclusive author, Peter van Houten. While everyone in the cast turns in a quality performance, Nat Wolff ( Admission ) is particularly charming as Augustus and Hazel's friend, Isaac, a character that weaves in and out of the main storyline but adds an extra layer of insight, and comedic relief, to  The Fault in Our Stars .

Skeptics might scoff at its young adult-centric romance but  The Fault in Our Stars  has the potential to touch moviegoers both young and old - especially those that have battled sickness or cared for a dying loved one. Fans of the book as well as uninitiated moviegoers looking for a thought-provoking character piece will find plenty to enjoy and ponder in Boone's latest film. The Fault in Our Stars  succeeds a heartfelt drama, where a pair of teenage protagonists set the stage for an ageless (and uplifting) message about human life - highlighting both its frailty and beauty.

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The Fault in Our Stars  runs 125 minutes and is Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some sexuality and brief strong language. Now playing in theaters.

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The Fault in Our Stars

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

A crappy cancer movie from a crappy cancer book. Be honest – that’s what you’re thinking. Prejudging is easy when it comes to The Fault in Our Stars , the movie version of John Green’s 2012 young-adult bestseller about a present-day Romeo and Juliet, both starcrossed by the Big C.

It turns out The Fault in Our Stars isn’t total crap on the page or on the screen. Green made the wise choice to be funny in telling his sad story. And the film, directed by Josh Boone from a wittily nuanced script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, of (500) Days of Summer , follows suit.

It’s a fresh, lively love story, brimming with humor and heartbreak, and lifted to the heights by Shailene Woodley, 22, a sublime actress with a résumé, from The Descendants to Divergent , that pretty much proves she’s incapable of making a false move on camera.

Woodley plays Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old whose thyroid cancer forces her to wear tubes in her nose and drag around an oxygen tank. As a look, it sucks. And Hazel knows it. Plus, she has a mouth on her.

What makes Hazel puke more than chemo is her cancer support group. That is, until she meets Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort, wonderful), a full-on charmer who is in remission since his osteosarcoma necessitated that one of his legs be removed from the kneedown. Gus is in group to support his buddy Isaac, played by Nat Wolff, so fine in Palo Alto and equally outstanding here. Isaac has lost one eye to cancer, with the other likely to go.

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Depressing? You’d think. But the actors, under Boone’s astute direction, never hit the pedal on self-pity. Hazel tells Gus her literary obsession is An Imperial Affliction , by Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe, superb), a recluse who ended his novel in midsentence and high-tailed it to Amsterdam. Hazel is consumed with finding Van Houten. So off she goes to Amsterdam, with her clumsy breathing apparatus, her mother (Laura Dern) and loyal Gus. Hard truths are learned. On a visit to Anne Frank’s attic, Hazel and Gus share a kiss.

Hold on. It only sounds awful. Woodley and Elgort, siblings in Divergent , are way cool as lovers, putting a hip, hotblooded spin on what could be maudlin mush. They find the tale’s comic spirit without losing its tragic fervor. Say what you will about the faults in Fault . It gets to you.

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The Fault in Our Stars film review

The film is faithful to a fault from the dialogues to the clothes, the setting and the food, even while skipping over some of the unpleasant details..

Director: Josh Boone Cast: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, Laura Dern Indian Express rating: **1/2

“The world is not a wish-granting factory” doesn’t have quite the resonance of “What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died?”. However, that’s not for the lack of trying. Forty-four years after that opening of Love Story and the ailing woman at the centre of it surged the book and movie to a monster success, here’s another film trying to make the best of a bestseller that was saved from being mawkishly exploitative only because of the spunky, raw and brutally honest notes it managed to strike at regular intervals.

But even John Greene’s book The Fault in Our Stars was transparent in its almost obsessive philosophising, realising that in the well-endowed market of young adult fiction, cancer isn’t enough to get romance love. However, where Greene brought in ethical theories, Venn Diagram, maths, metaphors and a very unlikable author with an equally verbose bent of thought, he also let his teens be teens in a world where few saw beyond her cannula plus oxygen tank and his prosthetic leg, including overindulging in video games.

Despite a readymade audience that comes with such gigantic bestseller, translating all of the above from the romance and the loving to the disease and the dying was never going to be easy. If Boone even gets halfway there, it is on account of Woodley (last seen in Divergent), who truly gets the unlikely Hazel Grace Lancaster that’s at the centre of this story.

Diagnosed with cancer when she was 13 and a death experience later, Hazel is now 17, breathing with the help of a nose cannula, quiet, more tired than cynical about her circumstances, and quite adult in her reactions. That’s clear from even the book she swears by, An Imperial Affliction, about a girl dying from cancer, which ended mid-sentence. The only subject that gets Hazel animated is a reflection on what happens later, after the girl, Anna’s, death.

When an impossibly charming 18-year-old Augustus Waters appears to take a liking to her, at a mutual cancer support group, and equally to the book – which is way out of his normal zombie reading – their fates are but sealed together. Augustus lost his leg to osteosarcoma but now appears on the bend.

To anyone familiar with the book, the film is faithful to a fault from the dialogues to the clothes, the setting and the food, even while skipping over some of the unpleasant details including what would have been an awkward sex scene. It also throws in a limousine for apparently no reason at all.

However, while these dilute the film of some of its essence, the more unpardonable flaw is how insipid all the other characters are, particularly Augustus who exists merely to fulfill Hazel’s dreams unlike the contrast-ridden dreamboat he was in the book.

The film also labours to underline the connection between Hazel’s search for an afterlife for Anna’s story and her concern for her own parents after her death – unlike how it flowed quite naturally in the book. And that’s nothing compared to how it uses Anne Frank’s story to illustrate Hazel’s struggle.

That Woodley even walks away from that last scene — struggling for breath and hauling her oxygen tank up impossible flights of stairs in the Amsterdam house Anne Frank took refuge in, ending it with her first kiss with Augustus and an applause – unharmed, is to her credit. She makes it all seem plausible, pulling along a mostly overwhelmed Elgort with her.

“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities” is another favourite line of The Fault in Our Stars – the point being about time being what you make of it. The film may not stand that test of time but, something tells us, the line will. That may be infinite enough.

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Four -time Keonjhar MLA Mohan Majhi has been selected as the Chief Minister of Odisha. Two deputy CMs have also been picked -- KV Singh Deo and Pravati Parida. The announcement comes a week after the BJP stormed to power in the state on its own for the first time by winning 78 out of 147 seats.

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One of my great great great grandfathers fought for the Union and survived the Battle of Antietam. After his infantry unit was wiped out, he hid under a heap of corpses. As a child, I often found myself thinking about a person doing what he did and then going on to live a normal life, or whatever was classified as normal in the late 1800s. I thought about him again watching Viggo Mortensen's film "The Dead Don't Hurt," a movie that injects the sorts of monumental moments of suffering and violence that you're used to seeing in more traditional, action-oriented Westerns into a tale that is mainly interested in the relationship between a man, a woman, and a child, and the intrigue among various characters who live in the nearest small town. 

Written, directed and scored by Mortensen (in his second venture behind the camera, following the contemporary family drama “ Falling "), and set before and during the US Civil War, “The Dead Don’t Hurt” has standard genre elements, but treats them as a way into something different than the usual. There's a sadistic psychopath who dresses in black, some rich men who lord their power over a Southwestern town, a goodhearted and soft-spoken sheriff, his steely wife, their beautiful, innocent son, and other variations on types that you tend to encounter in movies set during this period of US history. But there are no stagecoach or train robberies, quick-draws at high noon, extended gunfights, dynamite explosions, etc. There is violence of various kinds, and it's presented realistically and unsparingly, but not at such length that the movie seems to be getting off on pain. The pacing is what you would call "slow" if you don't like the movie, "deliberate" if you do.

Mortensen stars as Holger Olsen, a Danish immigrant who ends up as the sheriff of a small town in the American West. He lives in a tiny cabin in a canyon. I won't tell you exactly where the movie begins or ends because it's nonlinear, and accounting for things in the manner of a linear timeline would give a false impression of the movie and spoil important moments. Suffice to say that Holger goes to San Francisco and meets Vivienne Le Coudy ( Vicky Krieps ), a French Canadian flower seller, and takes her back to his cabin, where she overcomes her disappointment at his bare bones lifestyle and tries to build a life for them and the son they will eventually raise together. 

At the same time, the movie keeps returning to the aforementioned town, which is controlled by an arrogant businessman named Alfred Jeffries ( Garret Dillahunt ), his violent, entitled son, Weston ( Solly McLeod ), and the town mayor Rudolph Schiller ( Danny Huston ), who controls most of the local real estate, plus the bank. There’s tension surrounding the ownership of a saloon that's tended by an eloquent barkeep-manager named Alan Kendall (W Earl Brown). A shootout depicted early in the movie passes the saloon into the hands of the Jeffries family. Vivienne ends up working there. Weston takes a fancy to her, and doesn't respond well to being told he can't have her.

I mentioned earlier that this is a nonlinear movie and I’m mentioning it again here just in case you think there’s any standard cause-and-effect dynamic at work. It takes a while to get used to how the story is  told. Mortensen’s script deliberately confounds the way our moviegoing brains are typically asked to function. He starts near the end of his story and moves from the present tense into different parts of the past as needed. Time-shifts are not tied to plot or even theme. They seem as intuitive as brushstrokes in a painting. 

There are also flashbacks to Vivienne’s childhood, wherein she lost her father to war against the English—a trauma that sparks a dream or fantasy about a knight in armor riding through a forest. This image connects to the midsection of the movie, which is where Holger impulsively decides to enlist in the Union army to go off and fight against slavery and earn a promised enlistment payment, leaving Vivienne alone in that tiny house in the canyon. This might strike contemporary viewers as a casually callous thing to do, but it’s the kind of thing that happened plenty back then, and tends to be described in family histories with a sentence like, “Then he went off to fight in the war and came home a year later.” 

The writing and acting of all the characters is intelligent and measured. You get a sense of a complete person who lived a full life offscreen even when you're observing a character who only has a few judiciously chosen moments, such as Brown’s character, who is a bit too pleased with his own eloquence but sometimes seems ashamed after he verbally runs roughshod over others; or a judge played by Ray McKinnon who presides over the trial of a citizen wrongly accused of a horrible crime, and carries on as if God guides his gavel (a pistol butt); or a reverend played by veteran character actor John Getz (of “ Blood Simple ” and “The Fly”) whose community role requires him to oversee an execution whether it's justified or not. (Brown, Dillahunt and McKinnon were all on the HBO Western “Deadwood,” a go-to casting resource for this type of project; it's a treat to see them fully inhabit very different characters from ones they've played in the past.) 

None of the characters unveil themselves as you might expect. Holger initially comes across as a Clint Eastwood-style, strong-silent he-man archetype, but he's less decisive, more sensitive and learned. We often see him reading books or writing in a journal or on parchment. He dotes on Little Vincent ( Atlas Green ), his son with Vivienne, with a sensitivity and physical warmth that’s unusual in male-dominated films like this. His relationship to the Western hero code that’s often summed up as “doing what a man’s gotta do” is complicated as well. Olsen makes a lot of decisions that would result in negative comments on audience preview cards at a focus group screening (hard to imagine Mortensen doing one) because they are, to say the least, not things that a typical Western action hero would do. They’re more like what a real person with a complicated psychology would do—things he might regret in hindsight. 

Krieps, who broke out with “ Phantom Thread ,” is the true star of this movie, even though it’s bracketed by Mortensen’s character riding out on a long journey. She's the only character who gets flashbacks and dreams. She threads the needle of making her character seem self-assured, tough, and self-respecting yet never anachronistically “feminist,” in the contrived, phony way that a lot of period pieces feel obligated to write female characters of earlier times. Though unassuming in how she applies technique, Krieps is a deep and substantive film star, in the tradition of actresses from earlier eras like Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman . She makes a connection with the viewer. You can feel the hope drain from Vivienne when she keeps a stiff upper lip during awful experiences that she has no control over. But you also feel the resolve when she makes the best of a bad situation, and the excitement that blossoms in her when she's treated as a person of value.

Not too many filmmakers have ever made movies like this, and when you do come across one (such as Sam Peckinpah's " The Ballad of Cable Hogue " or the Charlton Heston movie " Will Penny ”, or “Deadwood”, or the 1970s movie " The Emigrants ") it stands out, in part because it avoids the predicable, ritualized high points that the genre is built upon, and instead concentrates on significant moments of interaction between characters who do not have a 20th or 21st century mindset superimposed on them. The lack of pandering to contemporary sensibilities means that all the characters remain slightly at a remove from us throughout the story. It also means that they come across as more real. Yes, certain aspects of the human experience are universal and have never changed. But there is a huge difference across time periods in how individuals understand themselves and each other, and this is a rare movie that respects that.

The movie also has a genuinely cinematic instinct for when to linger on a moment and when to cut around it, or allude to it as something that occurred offscreen. A lot of the longer sequences are just extended interactions between the film’s two romantic leads, who have a pleasing banter but derive a lot of their chemistry from looking at each other with resentment, yearning, gratitude, or disappointment. You almost never get to see material of this sort play out at length in a film set in the American West. Or any kind of film.

Mortensen is 65 now, three years older than Eastwood when he made “ Unforgiven ,” and the entertainment industry is even less hospitable to Westerns now than it was three-plus decades ago, so it’s tough to imagine him making more movies like this one. But he might turn out to be one of the great Western directors if he did. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film Credits

The Dead Don't Hurt (2024)

130 minutes

Vicky Krieps as Vivienne Le Coudy

Viggo Mortensen as Holger Olsen

Solly McLeod as Weston Jeffries

Garret Dillahunt as Alfred Jeffries

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‘Hit Man’ Review: It’s a Hit, Man

Glen Powell stars in one of the year’s funniest, sexiest, most enjoyable movies — and somehow it’s surprisingly deep, too.

By Alissa Wilkinson

If I see a movie more delightful than “Hit Man” this year, I’ll be surprised. It’s the kind of romp people are talking about when they say that “they don’t make them like they used to”: It’s romantic, sexy, hilarious, satisfying and a genuine star-clinching turn for Glen Powell, who’s been having a moment for about two years now. It’s got the cheeky verve of a 1940s screwball rom-com in a thoroughly contemporary (and slightly racier) package. I’ve seen it twice, and a huge grin plastered itself across my face both times.

That’s why it’s a shame most people will see it at home — Netflix is barely giving it a theatrical release before it hits streaming even though it’s the sort of movie that begs for the experience of collective gut-splitting joy. Oh well. If you can see it in a theater, it’s worth it. If not, then get your friends together, pop some popcorn and settle in for a good old-fashioned movie for grown-ups.

The director Richard Linklater and Powell collaborated on the “Hit Man” script, which is loosely based on Skip Hollandsworth’s 2001 Texas Monthly article about Gary Johnson, a faux hit man who actually worked for the Houston Police Department. In the movie version, Gary (Powell) is a mild-mannered philosophy professor in New Orleans with a part-time side gig doing tech work for law enforcement. One day, he is accidentally pulled into pretending to be a hit man in a sting operation, and soon realizes he loves playing the role.

Or roles, really: The more Gary gets into it, the more he realizes that each person’s fantasy of a hit man is different, and he starts to dress up, preparing for the part before he meets with the client. (If this movie were solely constructed as a de facto reel demonstrating Powell’s range, it would work just fine.) Then, one day, pretending to be a sexy, confident hit man named Ron, he meets Madison (Adria Arjona, practically glowing from within), a put-upon housewife seeking his services. And everything changes for Gary.

A great deal of the enjoyment of “Hit Man” comes from simply witnessing Powell and Arjona’s white-hot chemistry. Seeing Powell transmogrify from nerdy Gary to five o’clock shadow Ron and back again is both hilarious and tantalizing, while Arjona has a big-eyed innocence crossed with wily smarts that keeps everyone, including Gary, guessing. Multiple layers of deception keep the movie from feeling formulaic — you’re always trying to keep track of who thinks what, and why. Eventually, when “Hit Man” morphs into a kind of caper comedy, part of the joy is rooting for characters as they make choices that are, at best, flexibly ethical. In doing so, we get to be naughty too. In a movie starring a philosophy professor, that’s especially funny, a wry joke on us all.

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'Tuesday' is a heartrending, brilliant look at facing death starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus

What does death look like?

Humanity has given it many faces over the centuries: the monstrous half-Black and half-white woman, Hel, in Norse mythology. In Southeast Asia, there's the red-and-black form of Yama. In Western imagery, Death is a cloaked skeleton that often carries a scythe.

But what about the scarlet macaw?  

That’s exactly the form death takes in Daina Oniunas-Pusic ’s latest film “Tuesday.” 

Birds and death aren’t so strange. After all, vultures and crows are often seen as signs of death. But a rainbow tropical bird? Not so much. 

'You Hurt My Feelings' review: Julia Louis-Dreyfus is back

What is 'Tuesday' about?

“Tuesday” is a story about a mother and a daughter — and death. Tuesday, the daughter, played superbly by U.K. actress Lola Petticrew , is suffering from a deadly illness. 

Her mother, Zora, is desperate to ignore the fact that her only child is facing the end of her life — so much so that she avoids Tuesday altogether.

Zora is played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She’s disconnected from her only daughter. She spends her time trying to pawn off so-called family heirlooms and wanders through parks listlessly eating cheese. 

This is Louis-Dreyfus’ second film with A24 – the first being the 2023 comedy “ You Hurt My Feelings .” The highly decorated actress gets the opportunity to show once again just how versatile she is. 

Despite this movie being about death, Louis-Dreyfus still manages to fit in some quirky moments of humor. In many ways, her character is the child in the relationship. 

Back to the parrot. Death is a scruffy, dingy-looking macaw who lives a miserable existence. At every moment he hears the cries of the dying. But something magical happens when he’s with Tuesday. The cacophony stops. A tentative friendship is born.

Arinzé Kene voices Death, and he sounds unlike what you’d expect coming from a parrot. No high-pitched “Polly-wanna cracker” voice here. Instead, he sounds old, raspy and deep. The voice matches what you’d expect from a character named Death.

Things take an unexpected turn when Zora tries to prevent death from taking her child. In a bizarre twist, Zora manages to kill Death. But that is not a good thing.

'Tuesday' plays like a Roald Dahl story

“Tuesday” is a wholly original story, one that stands out brightly in a cinema landscape that sometimes feels rote. 

Never before have I laughed and cried so much in a movie about dying. The effects in this movie are also brilliant. Far from the action-packed CGI movies with billion-dollar budgets, “Tuesday” pours its effects money into making Death so realistic. It’s been a long time since a CGI creature actually looked authentic. 

At times, there’s a fairytale aesthetic that is reminiscent of a Roald Dahl story. You have clumsy adults and brave children with fantastical creatures. They go on an adventure — the final adventure. 

In the end, “Tuesday” is all about learning how to say goodbye. It’s masterfully done. This movie will remain in my top three films of the year.

'Tuesday' 5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Directors: Daina Oniunas-Pusic .

Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus , Lola Petticrew , Arinzé Kene .

Rating: R for language.

How to watch: In theaters Friday, June 14.

Contact Kaely Monahan at   k [email protected] . Follow her on our podcasts Valley 101 and The Gaggle , and X, formerly known as Twitter ,  @KaelyMonahan .

‘She’s Got No Name’ Review: Zhang Ziyi Suffers Stoically in a Stately Historical Melodrama

Peter Ho-Sun Chan's sweeping period feature is based on the true story of a woman accused of murdering her husband in 1940s Shanghai.

By Jessica Kiang

Jessica Kiang

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When Zhan-Zhou killed her pawnbroker-turned-luckless-gambler husband — nicknamed “Big Bear,” which is appropriate for how he looms over his timid, downtrodden wife — it was 1945 in occupied Shanghai. But that was also the year the Japanese puppet government was ousted and a new regime installed, during which the courts, in an effort to distance themselves from the prior administration, took a new look at certain high-profile cases. As Zhan-Zhou is tried and retried for this capital crime, Xi Lin (Zhao Li Ying), an almost cartoonishly glamorous local reporter and playwright, takes up her cause, influencing public opinion with her columns and performances, and contributing to the then-novel idea that, when it comes to ongoing domestic assault, there might be different shades of “guilty.”

Commissioner Xue, a handy avatar for the despised Japanese collaborator class, falls on hard times after the Nationalists take Shanghai and nurses a personal grievance against Zhan-Zhou as the obscure architect of all his woes. But there are decent men too, such as Ho (Da Peng) Zhan-Zhou’s locksmith neighbor who witnessed Big Bear’s abuse. And there’s Ye (Fan Wei, giving one of the film’s most sympathetic performances), the accused woman’s new attorney, who comes to a deeper understanding of the scourge of domestic violence — especially as it may pertain to his beloved daughter, who has recently married into wealth.

The subplot about Ye’s daughter establishes how spousal abuse can flourish in the gilded cages of the moneyed classes as much as in the tatty slums of the impoverished. But not all of Chan’s film is as subtle or clear-sighted. There is much less context, for example, given to the second change of regime that occurred during the span of Zhan-Zhou’s story — the 1949 Communist overthrow of the Nationalists — even though, at one point, we visit a labor camp in 1951. This de-focusing contributes to the slackening pace in the last third of this never-very-pacy film, and to its realistic, but nonetheless anticlimactic impression that however much we might admire its reticent heroine, her story is less revolutionary within the grand sweep of Chinese history than it is a small, poignant anomaly. 

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition), May 23, 2024. Running time: 150 MIN. (Original title: "Jiang Yuan Long")

• Production: (China) A WE Pictures production. (World sales: WE Distribution, Hong Kong.) Producer: Peter Ho-Sun Chan.
• Crew: Director: Peter Ho-Sun Chan. Screenplay: Shi Ling, Jiang Feng, Shang Yang, Pan Yi-ran. Camera: Jake Pollock. Editors: William Suk-ping Chang, Zhang Yi-bo. Music: Natalie Holt.
• With: Zhang Ziyi, Wang Chuan-jun, Jackson Yee, Zhao Li-ying, Lei Jia-yin, Yang Mi, Da Peng, Li Xian, Fan Wei, Ci Sha, Zhang Zi-feng. (Mandarin dialogue)

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