The Fault In Our Stars - Movie Review

  

          As the lights in the theatre faded to black and the opening scene for ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ began to run, I bit my lip. This was it. Like most people my age, I have had a deep love for the John Green novel ever since I had first read it. The book destroyed me, drowning me in tears as I read the last chapters. It had definitely left a lasting impression. I had been waiting for this movie for a long time. It meant something to me. It meant something to most every other teenager I knew. And that was why it was so important they got this right.

           Movie adaptations on the whole make me quite nervous. There are so many things that they can get wrong. I know I have to make exceptions -it must be difficult to fit every single page into the film - but the more they cut and paste and change, the lower my opinion plummets. I just get so angry paying to see a movie-adaptation of a book I loved so much and finding how unrecognizable it has become.

    

        Even if they do somehow manage to leave the plot line in its original form, I am still ridiculously hard to please. The setting and the characters have to be just so, otherwise the book will be ruined for me for a long time after. Seeing a movie-adaptation always manages to erase the idea of the characters that exists in my head and replace it with whatever brand-name ill-fitted actors that the director has chosen to sell more tickets. One single movie can change my whole perspective on the book, to the point where I can’t even remember what the character’s used to look like to me. When I read Harry Potter, it is Daniel Radcliffe I see, not the scruffy bespectacled kid that I had one been able to conjure up in my mind.

  

          However, with all that to consider, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ was perfect. It was beautifully shot; cleverly cast and did not miss a single scene. It was a wonderfully weird sensation to realise that the version of the book they had created was almost identical to the version of the book I had initially imagined at home. And after a deep discussion with a few other die-hard John Green fans it turned out that it was a close fit to their imaginations as well.

 When it was first announced, I had been apprehensive about the casting of soft-faced blonde, Ansel Elgort, for the part of Gus. But as I slipped easily into the first scenes of the movie, I realised that no other actor could have fit into the role quite as well. Elgort’s Gus was funny and charming and a sweet sort of handsome that he managed to show both on the inside and the out. It may just have been because I did not associate Elgort with any other movie but I really believed in his portrayal of Gus. I think that belief is one of the main reasons why my mascara was dripping off of the bottom of my face by the time the lights came up at the end of the show.

Even without having read the book, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ is an enjoyably romantic film to watch. The story is made perfectly clear for those with no previous experience and the scenes are wonderfully romantic with only a subtle layer of cheese to satisfy the audience. The powerful emotions contained within ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ have been translated almost perfectly from book to movie. Though I cried more when reading the book, the movie still felt like a strong personal experience.

If you haven’t read or seen ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ yet, I do recommend that you read it first. As closely as the film reflects the book, I still think that the book tells a more emotionally compelling story and proves to be a more satisfying experience overall.

That said, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ is easily one of the best movie adaptations that I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. There was much concern surrounding the ridiculous expectations of the fans of the book, but ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ somehow managed to skyrocket way above its impossible hype and into a whole new galaxy of goodness. Despite my apprehension, I loved this movie almost as much as the book.

With gorgeous cinematography and a wonderfully selected cast of characters ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ is a movie-adaptation that will simultaneously wreck you emotionally and warm you to the core. Without a doubt, if you were a fan of the book you’re going to love this.

Okay? Okay.

Rainbow List of Must-Reads: Yellow - It's Kind of a Funny Story

This is the Rainbow List of Must-Reads: Where I review a different one of my favourite books each week! Third on our list we have a yellow book with a yellow cover:

It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

           ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ is a book I picked up in the teen fiction section last year as an interesting summer read. If I’m quite honest with myself one of the main reasons I lifted it off the shelf was because I absolutely loved the quirky cover-art and there was nothing on the blurb that I found entirely unappealing. When I finally got round to opening the book up a week later as I lounged lazily on my deck chair in my garden, I was met with a pleasantly unpleasant surprise.

  

          ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ is not the kind of book you would usually find amongst the brightly coloured stories of the teen fiction section, to say the least. The book did not give me that bright and happy feeling I would usually get when reading something of such a high standard, but instead would leave me feeling low and foggy when I emerged from between its pages. This is because ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ is about depression.

           Depression books don’t usually find their way to my shelf. In the general I find them overly-dramatic and clichéd with transparent plotlines. However, when reading this book I found I connected with the main character, Craig Gilner, in a big way. When Craig sits in his friend Aaron’s house, smoking pot, his brain hazing with misery I could feel my own mind cloud over. When he stands on the Brooklyn Bridge, crazed by an erratic sort of desperation, I felt painfully desperate as well.

  

          I won’t lie to you. ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ is dark. Really dark. You follow Craig as the pressure from his prestigious school becomes unbearable and he spirals into a deep state of extreme self-loathing. The book is a brutally honest depiction of what depression is really like. Not glorified in the way of a dark romantic interest or cool like the troubled rock star, but a pure, raw, awful emotion. ‘It’s Kind of Funny Story’ is a book that finally shows depression as what it is – depressing.

           And how can we trust that Vizzini’s illustration of depression is not some exaggerated, over-the-top, version created for the sake of good fiction? How do we know that when Craig eventually finds himself in the adult ward of a psychiatric hospital that this isn’t just the psych ward of Vizzini’s imagination? We know because the author has experienced all this himself. ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ is a memoir of Vizzini’s life. He has felt like this; gone through this; been to these places. Through Craig, Vizzini shows us his own experiences with depression. He has shown us how frightening and all-consuming depression really is.

           But he has also shown us that it can get better – and that I believe is the most important thing about ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’. Yes, in the first half of the book we are shown how trapped and lonely depression can make you feel, but in the second half we are shown that you are never truly alone. Only when Craig finally seeks help can he begin to climb back out of the dark pit that is his life. Only upon dealing with his feelings does he realise that every single reason he wanted to kill himself could be quite easily fixed. I believe that ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ exists not only to acknowledge that there are people with these feelings in the world, but also to help these people break away from their lonely situation.

           Ned Vizzini dealt with a lot in his life. On December 19^th 2013, after an on-going struggle with depression, he committed suicide, leaving behind his wife and two-year-old child. When I read about Vizzini’s death it really hit home. Not only because his book was able to move me to tears, but because it made everything written inside ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ all the more true. Because of Vizzini I will never undermine the feelings of anyone battling with depression. I will never see depression as anything other than unbearable, isolating and completely serious. Vizzini has more than earned his spot on this list, I only regret that I couldn’t honour him in a bigger way than this blog post.

            I opened ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ with a light heart and an empty head, and I close it knowing profoundly more about the world around me than I had before.   


You can find out more about Ned Vizzini here!
You can read the other reviews in the Rainbow List of Must-Reads here: Red, Orange