The movie is equally beautiful.
They're both beautiful.
I do not use the word "beautiful" lightly.
You should read and watch both of them immediately.
First of all, the movie is so faithful to the book, and that's nice, because the book was wonderful. They didn't change Hazel's illness so that she doesn't have to have tubes sticking into her nose the entire movie, and they don't change the way Augustus and Hazel speak so that they sound more like the media's primary idea of what a teenager sounds like rather than the intelligent and articulate people that they are. Which is nice.
Secondly, you will cry like a baby. I know I did. I was sobbing in the theatre. This movie will do that to you. I thought I'd made it, I'd read the book and knew what was going to happen and then suddenly - BAM! - Augustus's car scene, and - BAM! - Hazel and Augustus are picnicking by the Funky Bones for the second time and then - BAM! - Hazel and Isaac and Augustus are in the Literal Heart of Jesus, and then - BAM! - that phone call in the middle of the night, and finally, the final - BAM! - "Okay, Hazel?" "Okay." (Did I manage to describe all the most heart-breaking scenes without actually spoiling anything? I think so. Go me).
Basically, you will cry a lot, and it's best to just accept it now. As someone who knew it was coming from the get-go, and who cried like a little baby nonetheless, I guarantee it.
Thirdly, you will laugh. Also quite a bit. I know I just described how you will cry so hard and sadness and just all the tears, but there is also a lot of humour to be found in this movie, and that's what makes it work. It's not a happy-go-lucky romcom, but it's also not a "We are desperately pulling out every trick in the book to make sure your eyes are never dry throughout this entire film" kind of movie, because neither of those are really truthful. Life has laughter and tears, that's the truth, that's what's real, and so that's what the movie does. Which is a lot of what makes it so smart and sharp and great.
The acting is fantastic. Really really amazing. Because, the thing is, it could have gone horribly wrong. Augustus could have been turned into a pretentious prick who only talks in such grandiose fashion to sound smart, with words so clearly written by someone behind a laptop instead of coming from his head that they practically sound like they're being read off a teleprompter. The reason being that he had a lot of speeches with a lot of thesaurus-y words. But it still didn't come off like that. Because that's the character. He does that when he's making an important point that he wants to make important, and you get that. Which is only one of the examples of very good acting in the film.
Also, it's just really artfully shot. It's like, every single shot looks like a painting that you could put on your wall and frame. It's just very pretty.
Also, like John Green (the author, and also coincidentally the ruler of the Internet), the movie really utilizes having the perfect words. Again, that doesn't mean that the words sound unrealistic and wooden, it just means that they're put together in a way that's quite poetic, and you know that someone spent time thinking about just the right way to say these things, but simultaneously, you have absolutely no problem believing, for the moment, that the person who did that was the person saying them. Does that make sense? I think it makes sense.
The only thing I would change is that they did not actually use the quote, "there is much fault to be found in our stars" (in relation to the Shakespeare quote from Julius Caesar, I think, in which someone says, "the fault is not in our stars/but in ourselves"). But they did use every other significant quote from the novel, including the everlasting, "Some infinities are bigger than other infinities" which starts as a mathematical paradox that blossoms into this resonating symbolism, as well as the "I fell in love the way you fall asleep" quote, and all the other quotes that everyone quotes ("I'm on a rollercoaster that only goes up, my friend") so I guess I can live without that one, even though it was actually the main one that really got to me, personally.
But, yeah. The movie is wonderful, and I will say it again because I truly believe it, it is beautiful, and I remind you, that is not a word I use lightly. So see it. Just do it.
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| Where's that quote from, I wonder? Also, this picture was, in fact, taken with a potato. |
Not that I'm biased or anything.
P.S But honestly, with all integrity as someone who really reaches deep into film and books and stories, it is genuinely a very good movie.
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