If you're a fan of the young adult-romance novel by John Green, see this movie. If you're like me and haven't yet read the book, Fox 2000's film adaptation is a high point in the recent rom-com landscape.
What I appreciate most about Fault is the fact that the star-crossed, cancer-stricken lovers, Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) and Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), never beg the audience's sympathy. Hazel, especially, tells her story how it is, and nothing ever comes off feeling sugar-coated. That level of authenticity with her character is what makes Hazel easy to sympathize with, not her terminal condition.
Fox couldn't have picked two stronger screenwriters to bring this particular story to the big screen. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber have had a very successful track record with the teen-centric, romantic-"dramedy" films (500) Days of Summer and The Spectacular Now. My only major complaint about the movie is that the parents are sketched rather thinly. While the story has always focused on the relationship between Hazel and Gus, their parents serve as larger supporting players in the book. At least that's what my 16-year-old sister tells me.
Laura Dern and Sam Trammell play Hazel's mom and dad, while David Whalen and Milica Govich are featured as Gus's parents. Whalen and Govich are barely accessory to the story while Dern and Trammell handle the most duty as the "voices of reason." Trammell fares decently as a father trying to cope with his daughter's disease while allowing her to live the life that she wants for herself. In hindsight, Dern just reminds me of Amy Poehler as Regina George's "cool mom" in Mean Girls in the sense that she always seems to let Hazel do her own thing with little to no concern. C'mon, really? Your daughter is freaking dying of cancer!
And call me heartless, but the climax of the story is a fairly predictable, albeit emotional, one. As such, I managed to escape the theater with my tissue box untouched.
Fault is an otherwise strong young-adult adaptation that raises the bar for romantic comedy and drama films in 2014.
B
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