Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Fault in Our Stars

2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 2; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s2213-2600(14)70111-0

2213-2619

Neil Bennet,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Much recent young adult fiction to make the transition to the big screen has been of the fantasy or science-fiction variety—think of the Twilight saga and the Hunger Games movies, or this year's Divergent. The Fault in Our Stars, starring Divergent's Shailene Woodley and produced by the same studio responsible for the Twilight films, bucks the trend—a real-world tragic love story of two teenagers who meet in a cancer support group. Adapted from John Green's massively successful novel of the same name, The Fault in Our Stars tells the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster (Woodley), a teenage girl with late-stage thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. After coming close to dying a few years earlier, she was entered into a clinical trial. The fictional drug seems to be controlling her disease for the time being, but she and her parents (portrayed excellently by Laura Dern and Sam Trammell) are well aware that her diagnosis remains terminal, and she relies on constant breathing support from a portable oxygen tank. Convinced that Hazel's illness is making her depressed (“depression's not a side-effect of cancer; it's a side-effect of dying”, suggests Hazel as narrator), her mother sends her to a support group for teenage patients and survivors of cancer at a local church. It's here she meets the swaggering and handsome Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), a survivor of osteosarcoma who lost part of his leg to the disease, but is now believed to be cancer free. Outside the meeting, Hazel is angered to see Gus putting a cigarette to his lips, but he explains that he has never lit one, instead using it as metaphor: “You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing.” It's with Gus that the story seems to turn somewhat to teenage fantasy, despite the real-world setting. The world might not be a “wish-granting factory”, as the lead characters complain, but in Green's world Gus could be construed as such—something that undoubtedly will have helped cement the original novel's popularity with its young and largely female fan-base, and that has been recreated faithfully on screen. Gus is good-looking, charming, and self-confident, and at the same time sweet, attentive, and generous—more an idealisation of the perfect boyfriend than a realistic teenage boy. Hazel and Gus bond over Hazel's favourite book, by reclusive author Peter van Houten (Willem Dafoe), whom Gus manages to track down and contact. Gus uses his wish from The Genies (a fictionalised version of the Make-A-Wish Foundation) to take Hazel and her mother on a trip to Amsterdam to meet van Houten. The meeting doesn't go according to plan—with Dafoe putting in an entertaining turn as the bitterly angry, alcoholic writer—but Hazel and Gus's relationship develops and blossoms in the picturesque setting. Adapting a book with such a large and committed following is always going to be a challenge, and director Josh Boone's decision to be as faithful as possible to the source material can sometimes be problematic. In a scene in the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, Hazel struggles to breathe while climbing the steep staircase leading to the attic where Frank hid from the Nazis. She pushes herself on, the museum's audio narration in the background apparently meant to link to Hazel's own struggle, and she and Gus kiss, to be met with a round of applause by the other museum patrons. Whereas it might have worked on page, in film the scene is wince-inducing in its awkwardness, and so implausible as to temporarily break the narrative. On the positive side, despite some mawkishness, screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber ([500] Days of Summer, The Spectacular Now) do an admirable job of bringing the novel to the screen. They manage to maintain what was successful about Hazel's character, who remains witty and engaging, and whose fear about hurting others with her own mortality is portrayed movingly by Woodley. The version of serious illness presented in the film is very much a Hollywood one—largely sanitised or hidden from view, expect in a few shocking moments. But the story isn't so much about cancer, but about Hazel and Gus as tragi-romantic characters, whose time together is limited. Although some might object to the use of terminal illness as a backdrop to what can at times be a schlocky teen romance, there's no denying that it works, at least on the raw emotional level—few eyes remained dry even among the hardened film journalists at the press screening. Despite its problems, The Fault in Our Stars is a decent teen romantic drama, and without a vampire or werewolf in sight. The Fault in Our Stars Josh Boone. 2014, USA, 125 min The Fault in Our Stars Josh Boone. 2014, USA, 125 min