GUEST COLUMN: "The Fault in Our Stars" is a Good Movie - As Long As You Don't Expect the Book

Image: USA Today

"The Fault in Our Stars" Is a Good Movie - As Long As You Don't Expect the Book

by Kevin Gardner

When Hollywood decides to make a movie out of your favorite book, the most you can hope for is that the people making the film have a deep understanding of the book. You hope they get the important themes, messages, and tone that made the book something special. The film version of The Fault in Our Stars may point out the fact that the issue runs deeper than that. It simply may be true that the totality of a really great book can never be fully captured on film. 

John Green's novel "The Fault in Our Stars" took the YA literary world by storm when it was released. The movie based on the novel was almost as popular. Interestingly though, many who loved the book didn't love the movie, while many who loved the movie didn't love the book. It's a good movie. It's a really good book. But maybe for very different reasons.

Transitioning From Page to Screen

Green is a very talented writer who chooses to write for the YA crowd even though books in this genre are often dismissed by literary aficionados. Much of the brilliance of this story in particular is in the tone that Green finds in the heroine's voice; her unique perspective on life as a young person who has been facing the inescapability of death for many of her brief years. So much of the impact of the novel relies on the ability of readers to be inside her head, getting a first-hand experience of that thought process.

Film can do many things well, but it struggles to supplant the kind of inner world that an author creates in a well-crafted novel. The creators of the film version of "The Fault in Our Stars" gave moviegoers a taste of that voice through the use of first-person voiceovers at the beginning and the end of the movie. But it simply wasn't enough. Despite some very good acting on the part of the lead actress, the audience just couldn't get that immersive participation in the heroine's journey. 

Portraying An Inner Life

The lead actress in the film also faced the difficulty of playing a character dealing with terminal cancer affecting her thyroid health who simultaneously has a vibrant and energetic mind. On the pages of the book, those opposites are easily overcome, but in the visual medium of film, it is challenging. The actress portrayed the physical effects of her illness well, but that carefulness of movement, that persistent lack of energy bled over into her emotional life as well leading to a performance that was lacking in dynamics and vibrancy.

The loss of the ability to share the lead character's thoughts also led to a loss of some of the most impactful messages of the book. Whereas Green's novel has insightful things to say about life, death and love; the movie never really rose higher than a tragic young romance.

Navigating the Language

Transitioning the work of hyper-articulate authors like Green, whose stock in trade is the expression of experience and emotion through language, to film offers some particular challenges. Green's young people do not express themselves like the average teen or twenty-something. They fully express the thoughts and feelings that young people can't always articulate clearly but feel and experience so keenly. That's one of the reasons his novels are so wildly popular.

Hearing teens actually speaking Green's lines in a movie is a bit jarring. The lead actress makes the transition fairly well, seeming to understand that the words she is speaking are representational rather than literal. The male lead is less successful. His choice to excuse the strangeness of the language as consistently humorous and ironic felt inorganic and disingenuous at times. 

The film version of "The Fault in Our Stars" is good, but it's not great. It portrays the sweetness and the sorrow of the love story between the lead characters but fails at presenting anything deeper than that. For those looking for a well-acted teen romance, you'll enjoy the movie. For fans of the deeper messaging from the novel, you may be disappointed.