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Rating: Mea Culpa
It's necessary to start this review this way.
Yes, indeed.
Mea Culpa for judging a movie without even being informed, without knowing much about the cast and the director. Having never seen either a clip or the trailer. Indeed, I wouldn't have gained much: actors (almost) all little known to major productions and a director in his first test with a product of this level. But that doesn’t excuse making a mistake anyway.
I'm talking about "The Fault in Our Stars".
I knew absolutely nothing about this film until I sat in the cinema seat, brought there by my girlfriend and reassured by the positive reviews I had only glimpsed in previous days. Skepticism, that was what I felt. Then the lights went out, the movie started to roll, and there I came to a conclusion that I had heard several times before but never experienced: never, and I repeat NEVER, judge a movie before actually seeing it. From the first few minutes, I understood I was facing not just a simple movie for teenagers, or for girls looking for a new “Twilight” or films of that caliber. This is a film belonging to a parallel world compared to what I expected: a very pleasant surprise.
The plot is also quite simple: the seventeen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster has been fighting lung cancer for years, compromising her functionality a little more every day. During one of the support group meetings for cancer patients, she meets the handsome Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), also a cancer survivor in exchange for the amputation of a leg.
An indissoluble friendship will develop between the two, which will inevitably blossom into love.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by John Green. I savored every single minute of it. Well-crafted. Refined direction. Cynical and harsh dialogues reflecting the situation experienced by the protagonists.
A first act well-managed among the difficulties that a tumor can involve for a teenager and their family, moments of lightness that bring laughter and the pleasantness of a love story like many others if it weren’t for the particular situation experienced by Hazel Grace and Augustus.
In the second act, there is a change of pace, moving towards the harshest drama that leaves you breathless and with a stone in your stomach, but that's sheer realism.
It deals with incurable diseases, respiratory crises, depression; life is also this, so how can we expect everything to go exactly as in films (I mean the feel-good ones)? Life, unfortunately, is also pain, and this film reminds us of that by slamming the truth in our faces, and it does so quite violently.
I don't want to give anything away because I want you to go see it because it is one of those movies that MUST be seen without any “ifs” or “buts”.
This cinematic project demonstrates how great films can be made even with a cast of actors much less known than the big names of Hollywood: in the role of the protagonist is a tremendous Shailene Woodley (whom I didn’t know until now) who in her career had very few other roles but with this performance rightfully launches herself into the Hollywood scene. Furthermore, there is also a grand participation of Willem Defoe, in the role of a character as secondary as vital to the plot.
As if all this wasn’t enough, it is all accompanied by a stellar musical selection. A soundtrack that never clashes with the images proposed. Every single song links perfectly to everything else.
The director, in his debut with a feature of this importance, has done an excellent job, deserving to be remembered over time.
If you want a carefree film, this isn't it.
“The Fault in Our Stars” will make you reflect, think, smile but right after it will make you tear up. It will leave a bitter taste, but because that's what it intends to do.
Real life is not made of “Happy Endings”.
And if I can conclude with a personal opinion, well...it's thanks to films like these that I love cinema.
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