The film follows the life of Hazel Grace (Shailene Woodley), a girl with cancer, who meets a good looking fella, named Augusta Waters (Ansel Elgot), at a cancer support group run by Mike Birbiglia. The two obviously fall in love and the film follows there unique love story as they both discover that there's more to life than the cancer that's destroying there bodies. The film also has an outstanding supporting cast with Laura Dern aka hot legs from Jurassic Park playing Hazel's mother and even Williem DaFoe showing up as a drunk pissed off author. Director Josh Boone's use of slick camera work and descent pacing kept me emotional involved and connected to the story. I'm not going to lie and say I love every second of this film but at no point was I every disconnected enough to completely loose interest in what was happening on screen.
Aside from being a single manly man in a cinema fully of giggly girls who laughed at ever single corny line in this picture I couldn't find a single legitimate fault with this movie, and believe me I was searching like a hawk for some reason to destroy this movie and rip it a new in this review. In fact it was actually one of the best movies that I've seen to date this summer. In a summer full of films that are sequels, reboots, reboot sequels, and whatever the hell Godzilla was this film feels fresh and original. The only flaws that I could find where the typically thinks that frustrates about chicks flicks like the fact that there are no explosions and all the silly romantic stuff. Underneath all this chick stuff however the film really has a deep and profound message about life, love, and how we choose to spend our time with the people we love. It's a film that unlike all the other films I've seen this summer has really stuck with me after I left the cinema. Unlike the other movies I've seen like the dreadfully boring Godzilla which I forgot all about mere hours after seeing. Another minor fault I could point out was how sexy these people are despite the fact that they have cancer. Hazel and Augusta have to be the sexiest cancer patients in the world!!! I completely understand it's a movie and I know I'm kind of nit picking here but come on no one looks that good with cancer. For a few brief moment I considered going out and getting cancer and a badass leather jacket so I could pick up equally hot girls at my cancer support group meeting.
The one thing I enjoyed most about this film was how the film showed the impact that cancer has on not just the two teenagers but how it affects their families and friends. I felt that the film did a very good job of showing the impact of cancer beyond the people that are actually afflicted by it. I liked the bitter sweet realism the film portraits as it walks a tight rope balancing humor,romance, and ultimately heartbreak. The fact that the film doesn't have a happy Disney princess ending was also refreshingly pleasant. The film did an excellent job of stirring clear of to many overly familiar genre plot points which kept me guessing and interested. Now I'm not an emotional person when it come to movies. I have never been driven to tear by a movie yet, but I must say at the end of the movie I did feel something....I'm not 100% sure what it was I felt I just know that the film left a deep impression on me. Something that I can't say for a lot of the film that I've seen recently. Honestly I can put this movie up there with "50/50", another great cancer related comedy.
I am a manly man who enjoys doing manly man things like playing football while chopping down trees with Swiss army knife while at the same time boxing full grown grizzly bears on an unstable bridge over an active volcano...while blindfolded and tied up....with chains. I still fully enjoyed this movie and it didn't cost me my man card either. Bros this is the perfect date movie that as a couple you can both fully enjoy, but be fore warned if you have an emotional girlfriend the end of this movie may have in tears. On my way out of the cinema I don't think I saw any women with dry eyes.
-A
