Great film to sit through, if the pretentiousness doesn't get you first.

Rating: 7/10 (18 February 2017)

There are already hundreds of reviews for this film praising it as some beautiful and heartbreaking journey between two kids in love, and you know, those reviews are right. The Fault in Our Stars is absolutely incredible. If you want hours and hours of text going over how absolutely incredible it is, it's not too difficult to find the 10-star reviews. This is in my opinion a pretty good film with a lot to offer.
It's also incredibly pretentious. Its beginning introduction narrated by Hazel tells you that "movies should tell the truth instead of romanticizing terminal illness". And then it does exactly what it says movies shouldn't do, all while introducing two young adults who talk as though they're reciting poetry every time they open their mouths. If you really want the truth, people don't speak this way or act this way. Augusten was the most annoying character in a film I've ever come across in a long time. Every normal conversation between him and Hazel dissolves into geeky pop culture references, video games and philosophical musings. His pseudo-intellectual routine yet childish attitude just makes him seem ridiculous. Hazel herself is so apathetic that it's simply unrealistic. They have many wonderful on-screen moments together, but the pretentiousness got on my last nerve every time. The similar 2003 film 'My Life Without Me' (also about a girl dying from cancer and falling in love) did it the right way, showing real human beings without watering them down under nerd culture and lame jokes.
The great moments in this film however far outweigh the lousy ones. Issac, who has gone blind from retinal cancer, is perhaps the most realistic of any of the characters in the film. He bring initial comic relief to the story and later on profound sadness. Augusten does often drop the show-off attitude and prove himself to be an excellent person, whether taking Hazel on picnics to an enormous artists' rendering of a skeleton, to getting her on a tour to meet her favorite author in Amsterdam which strays from its route and ends up becoming a tour of Anne Frank's house. There's a lot of value to The Fault in Our Stars as a film in general, however the ending is very harrowing and this is not a story for everyone. It's going to be a magnificent masterpiece for some viewers, and a morose kick in the pants for others. Either way, whichever side of that spectrum you happen to fall on, this is still a story worth pursuing.