This is a tough review, because I haven’t read the book this film is based on, which means I might be missing something crucial in understanding the book’s rapid fan base.Very few books written in the last decade (with heroines not named Bella or Katniss that is) have inspired such devotion from its young adult readers as this one has, and most of the audience I saw the adaptation with would give it an “A+++.” Sometimes a certain movie just won’t click for me the way it might other people, and maybe there’s just something I’m a little slow on here.
What Works: Even though I don’t share a big enthusiasm for this movie, I have to admit it’s still better-than-average and nobody will be able to call it flat-out bad. There’s an easy skill to everything we’re watching here, and it’s refreshing to watch something a little more casually paced than your average summer blockbuster. From the beginning, the film is as confident as its male lead, it knows that it’s got it’s audience right where it wants them, and we never feel a moment of flop sweat. Even the worst scenes in it felt smooth and comforting…maybe too much so…
What Doesn’t: The central characters are cancer survivors that are barely surviving, yet there’s something naggingly abstract about their predicament. The film never lets us in on their inner panic, and both seem to think of death as just one big annoyance rather than the end. When the film starts laying on the waterworks late in the game, I felt curiously unmoved, and began to feel like the money-shot “cry scenes” were some deeply cynical bean-counter’s idea of what would be sad more than something than genuinely knocked me on my ass. Don’t get me wrong, it is definitely affecting, but it didn’t really stay with me after the credits rolled.
There’s also something subtly nefarious about having the male dreamboat lead spend so much time with a cigarette between his lips. Sure, he never lights it, but the subconscious message of “Look at how cool he looks with that cigarette!” will worm itself pretty deep in the minds of this young adult audience. There’s a scene where the leads are having a great time with cigarettes that feels like some stealth, sick Phillip Morris commercial.
And a visit to Amsterdam so the central couple can visit Willem Dafoe’s author feels aimless and never quite as essential to the plot as it should.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Done something with the Dafoe subplot. And maybe presented a more realistic boyfriend for the lead character. This Augustus guy is the most dashing cancer survivor since pre-scandal Lance Armstrong, and maybe an unrealistic ideal for the tween girls (and adult women) that loved the book.