The Fault In Our Stars deals with cancer and death and all manner of 'serious' themes, which makes attacking the film look like a dismissive put-down of the importance of what it raises. Which is not only far from the case, but is also incredibly strange given that the film does its damnedest to undermine itself from the off. Throughout the film Hazel harps on about how her relationship with indie cool guy Gus is "real love", pulling the (500) Days Of Summer trick of directly addressing how movies represent love in an idealised, and subsequently rather damaging, way. But while Marc Webb's movie was a repurposed rom-com sending up those tropes, The Fault In Our Stars is really only using that as a barrier to hide how sentimentally clichéd the whole thing is. Saying "this is real" then proceeding to do things decidedly unreal is the equivalent of having the audience chase a carrot then giving them a drawing of one. Take the scene in Anne Frank's House where the two realise their love to the applause of the rest of the visitors. Yeah, let's cheer these two horny teenagers for making out in a room where a family was dragged off to their deaths. Such a feel-good movie. Yes, the film doesn't go full unreal and let the big C not reel its head come act three, but by then it's already shown its sentimentally lacklustre hand.
