
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Mike Birbigli, Lotte Verbeek, Willem Dafoe, Milica Govich, David Whalen, Ana Dela Cruz, Emily Peachey, Emily Bach, Randy Kovitz
OUR RATING: ★★★★☆
Story:
Romance drama directed by Josh Boone, based on the novel of the same name by John Green. The story follows teenager Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley), with terminal lung cancer who is then saved by an experimental treatment. Fearing that Hazel is suffering from depression she is pressured by her parents, Frannie and Michael (Laura Dern and Nat Wolf), to join a support group for young cancer patients where she meets cancer survivor Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort). As Hazel and Augustus strike up a fast friendship they soon find themselves falling in love and planning to love each other forever when ultimately time catches up with them.
Our Favorite Quotes:
'It's possible to live with pain. You just do it.' - Frannie (The Fault in Our Stars) Click To Tweet 'She didn't want a million admirers. She just wanted one. And she got it. Maybe she wasn't loved widely, but she was loved deeply. And isn't that more than most of us get?' - Gus (The Fault in Our Stars) Click To Tweet
Best Quotes
[first lines; Hazel is lying in the grass staring up at the stars]
Hazel: I believe we have a choice in this world, about how to tell sad stories. On the one hand, you can sugar coat it, the way they do in movies and romance novels where beautiful people learn beautiful lessons and nothing is too messed up that can’t be fixed with an apology and a Peter Gabriel song. I like that way as much as the next girl, believe me. It’s just not the truth. This is the truth. Sorry.
Hazel: The booklets and the web sites always list depression as a side effect of cancer. Depression’s not a side effect of cancer, it’s a side effect of dying. Which is what was happening to me.
Dr. Maria: Have you been going to that support group I suggested?
Hazel: Yeah, it’s not my thing.
Dr. Maria: Support group’s going to be a great way for you to connect with people who are…
Hazel: Who are what?
Dr. Maria: On the same journey.
Hazel: “Journey?” Really?
Dr. Maria: Give it a chance. Who knows? You might even find it enlightening.
[at the cancer support group]
Hazel: I’ll spare you the gory details of Patrick’s ball cancer. Basically, they found it in his nuts. They cut most of it out, and he almost died, but he didn’t die. So now here he is, divorced, friendless, living on his parent’s couch, exploiting his cancertastic past in the heart of Jesus, “literally”, to show us that one day, if we’re lucky, we could be just like him.
Hazel: And that was my life. Reality shows, doctor’s appointments, eight prescription drugs, three times a day. But worse worse worst of all, support group.
Hazel: Mom, if you want me to be a teenager you don’t send me to support group. You got to like get me a fake ID so that I can go clubs, and drink gimlets, and take pot.
Michael: Uh, you don’t take pot.
Hazel: Okay, well that is the kind of thing I would know with a fake ID.
[Isaac introduces himself at the support group]
Isaac: Hey, guys. Hi. I’m Isaac, I have retinoblastoma. I’ve had surgery on one eye when I was younger, so this is a glass eye, and then I’m going to the hospital for another surgery to take out the other eye. So after that surgery I’m just going to be totally blind. But I have a beautiful smoking hot girlfriend to help me, Monica. And I have great friends like Augustus Waters who helps me out. So that’s what’s up. Thanks.
[as Gus introduces himself at the support group]
Patrick: And how are you feeling, Gus?
Gus: I’m grand, yeah. I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.
Patrick: Maybe you’d like to share your fears with the group.
Gus: My fears?
[Gus thinks for a moment and looks over to Hazel before replying]
Gus: Oblivion.
Patrick: Oblivion?
Gus: Yeah, see I intend to live an extraordinary life. To be remembered. So I’d say if I had any fears it would be to not do that.
Hazel: I just want to say that you know there’s going to come a time when all of us are dead. There was a time before humans, and there’s going to be a time after. It could be tomorrow, could be a million years from now, and when it does there will be no one left to remember Cleopatra, or Muhammad Ali, or Mozart, let alone any of us. Oblivion’s inevitable. And if that scared you, then I suggest you ignore it.
[Gus smiles at her]
Hazel: God knows, it’s what everyone else does.
Patrick: Well, that’s some good advice.
Gus: What’s your name?
Hazel: Hazel.
Gus: No, what’s your full name?
Hazel: Hazel Grace Lancaster.
Hazel: Why are you looking at me like that?
Gus: Because you’re beautiful.
Hazel: Oh, my God.
Gus: I enjoy looking at beautiful people. See I decided a while back not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence. Particularly as you so astutely pointed out, we’re all going to die pretty soon.
Hazel: Okay, that’s great, but I am not beautiful.
[referring to Isaac and Monica who keep saying “always” to each other]
Hazel: What’s with the “always?”
Gus: “Always” is like their thing. Like they’ll “always” love each other and whatnot. They’ve probably texted “always” to each other like fourteen million times this year.
[as Gus puts a cigarrette in his mouth]
Hazel: Really?! That is disgusting!
Gus: What?
Hazel: What, do you think that that’s cool or something? You just ruined this whole thing.
Gus: The whole thing?
Hazel: Yes! This whole thing!
Gus: Oh, man.
Hazel: You were doing really well too. God! There’s always a hamartia, isn’t there? And yours is, even though you had freaking cancer, you’re willing to give money to a corporation for the chance to acquire even more cancer? Let me just tell you that not being able to breathe sucks! It totally sucks!
Gus: Hamartia?
Hazel: It’s a fatal flaw.
[holds the cigarette between his fingers]
Gus: Hazel Grace, they don’t actually hurt you unless you light them.
Hazel: Hm?
Gus: I never lit one. It’s a metaphor, see? You put the thing that does the killing right between your teeth. But you never give it the power to kill you. A metaphor.
[as Gus drives them to his house]
Gus: Yeah, I failed my test a couple times.
Hazel: You don’t say.
Gus: Actually the fourth time I took the test it was going about how this is going, and when it was over, the instructor looks over at me and she says, “your driving, while unpleasant, is not technically unsafe.”
Hazel: Cancer perk.
Gus: Total cancer perk.
[after Hazel explains her cancer story]
Hazel: So they called it “The Miracle.” Of course my lungs still suck at being lungs, but theoretically, they could continue to suck like this for, I don’t know, a while maybe.
Gus: So are you back to school?
Hazel: I got my GED, so I’m taking classes at MCC.
Gus: Woh! A college girl! Well that explains the aura of sophistication.
Gus: Alright. What’s your story?
Hazel: I already told you. I was diagnosed when I was thirteen…
Gus: No, no, no. Not your cancer story. Your real story. Your interests. Your hobbies. Your passions. Your weird fetishes.
Hazel: Weird fetishes?
Gus: Come on, just think of something. The first thing that pops into your head, something you love.
Hazel: “An Imperial Affliction.”
Gus: Okay. What’s that?
Hazel: It’s a novel. It’s my favorite novel.
Gus: Wait, wait, wait. Does it have zombies in it?
Hazel: Zombies? No!
Gus: Stormtroopers?
Hazel: No. It’s not that kind of a book.
Gus: Okay, what’s it about?
Hazel: Uh, cancer.
Gus: About cancer?
Hazel: But not like that, trust me. It’s amazing. The author, his name is Peter Van Houten. He is the only person I’ve ever come across in my life who, A, understands what it’s like to be dying, but, B, hasn’t actually died.
Gus: Okay, I will read this horrible book with it’s very boring title that does not include zombies or stormtroopers. And in exchange…
[he gets up and grabs a book from the shelf]
Gus: You will read this. This haunting yet brilliant novelization of my favorite video game.
Hazel: “Counterinsurgence.”
[Hazel laughs]
Gus: Okay, don’t laugh. It’s awesome. It’s about honor and sacrifice and bravery and heroism. It’s about embracing your destiny and leaving a mark on the world.
Gus: Your hands are so cold.
Hazel: Oh, they’re not so much cold as just under oxygenated.
Gus: Hazel Grace?
Hazel: Hm?
Gus: I love it when you talk medical to me.
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