The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars (2014) is adapted from John Green's novel and is the best known example of the young adult cancer story. Hazel is sixteen. Her thyroid cancer has spread to her lungs and she carries an oxygen tank. At a support group she meets Augustus, who has lost a leg and whose cancer is in remission. Where it leaves the template is in how Hazel sees her own illness. She thinks of herself not as a patient but as a bomb that will damage the people around her, and her real fear is not dying but what happens to them afterwards. Their trip to Amsterdam is the centre of the film. They go to find the author of a book Hazel loves, and what they find is nothing like what they expected; that section is the novel's best idea. There is a scene set in the Anne Frank House which was seriously criticised on release. The objection was that a memorial to genocide is turned into the backdrop for a romantic moment. The argument has not gone away. Shailene Woodley plays the part without reaching for manipulation, and that is the film's steadiest quality. It runs 126 minutes. Good for: young adult drama, films that set out to make you cry, and book adaptations. Less good for: cancer and death are the central subject, the sentiment runs high, and the beats are familiar.