The Fault in Our Stars

The beauty of ticket contests is that sometimes you get to see widely anticipated films before their official release date. Case in point: The Fault in Our Stars - an exclusive premiere, one week before its official local starting date (and even before it premiered in the US!). Even better, not only did I win two tickets to this, but a friend also won, so there were four of us.

I've had my difficulties with the book, as I detailed in my other blog. Primarily, I didn't care much for the book version of Augustus. The character was less annoying in the film, I felt. (My friend S. found his constant grinning annoying, though.) Apart from the story with the previous, deceased girlfriend, which fell between the cracks, the book was thoroughly covered. Sure, it took its liberties here and there, but the essence of the story remained.

The translation to screen worked beautifully and the end product is much more enthralling than the book would have led me to expect. The acting was exceptional on all fronts (Willem Dafoe!) and even though there was a lot of laughing in the theater throughout the first half of the film, there was just as much sniffling and nose blowing through the second half.

We laughed. We cried.

7/10