

You can't help but like and feel for Woodley's Hazel, of course, because she's an excellent actress giving it her all playing a cancer patient. In the movie, however, Woodley often does play Hazel as a blank slate. And yet, in spite of Hazel's maturity, she is still sometimes a normal teenager who wants her parents to be ok after her death, but says grouchy, even mean things, when pushed. Throughout the book, it is clear how smart, nerdy and interesting she is. Green doesn't pander to his readers or assume they are intellectually unsophisticated. There is nothing vacuous or blank slate-ish about her she is not a grown-up's stereotype of what teenagers are like. It is Hazel's self-aware quirkiness that makes TFIOS (the book) so appealing. As the story begins, Hazel has metastatic thyroid cancer and Gus is cancer-free after a bout with osteosarcoma that claimed one of his legs. Crew models, in spite of the cannula in Hazel's nose throughout the film. For one thing, the two leads have the preppy shine of J. They promise the movie won't be a generic kids-dying-of-cancer pic.Īlthough what we get is faithful to the plot of the blockbuster book (I'm sure many tweens will love this adaptation), it does not feel like the truth of two particular teen cancer patients in love as the book told it. They promise truth in the descriptions of pain both psychological and physical of dying from cancer and the truth of two complicated psyches. The best thing about John Green's book, in my opinion is its effortless authenticity and unvarnished emotional truths, so the opening lines seem to promise something great to those who like the book.

To badly paraphrase, she promises that the story to follow will not be an manufactured romance, but the truth. The lines are a voiceover by Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley), a 16-year-old cancer patient. The most problematic thing about the film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars is in its opening lines.
