The reason I am rating this a 1 is to combat the insane 8.2 rating that this terrible movie has.
I'm a 17 year old girl, and most people would assume someone my age would fall head over heels for a movie like this. I watched expecting to see this amazingly realistic, incomparable, and tragically beautiful love story, which is how TFIOS had been described to me. After spending two hours watching this movie, I'm sitting here wondering if I'm made of stone considering I did not shed a single tear. But several movies I have watched, and stories I have read, have left me sobbing and attempting to recover for days. I have never read the book, or any of John Green's books for that matter but now I will forever hold the opinion that he is a fully grown man attempting to articulate not only the life of a teenage girl, but the life of someone suffering with a disease. The first few lines of the movie, narrated by Hazel, made me know I was going to hate this movie, since she was describing things that happened in cliché romance stories (which is exactly what this is), and how this was "true." The idea that this movie was realistic is ridiculous. First of all, a few token one-liners in the movie were clever and well written, but would never come out of a teenager's mouth. As a teenager myself, I can confirm that we are not that profound. I didn't understand the appeal that either of the main characters had in the other, other than the fact they both had cancer. Hazel was boring, and selfish, and self-pitying, and Gus was so pretentious it made me feel sick, and I never believed for a second that he was a virgin. Of course cancer is a terrible thing, as is death itself, but the fact that I didn't care about either of them, and saw them as a caricature of what John Green thinks or wants teenagers with cancer to act like, made me completely indifferent to their predictable demise. The story line with them going to Amsterdam to visit the author of their favorite book was annoying and unnecessary. Although the author was painted as this terrible person, I actually agreed everything that came out of his mouth about Hazel. I'm pretty sure the whole point of that scene was to say "hey, what can we do to make this movie even more depressing? I know, let's take the one thing that the main character cares about and destroy it, in order to make her completely dependent on her love interest." There's too many complaints I have about specific eye-roll inducing lines and scenes in this movie to even remember, but the one that angered me more than anything was when they went to the Anne Frank house. First, they tried to compare the horrible death of Anne Frank and her family, which was an outcome of the most horrible thing that has happened in human history, to these teenagers dying with cancer. As soon as they reached the top floor of the house, paying attention only to Hazel struggling to climb the stairs, in my mind I started thinking "please make them be respectful. I swear, if Gus tries to crack a self-righteous joke I will punch my laptop screen." At first, I was pleasantly surprised, because they were quiet and solemn, but then, they begin making out... Only to make it worse, everyone in the room begins clapping. Why? If I was there, I would be furious at their lack of respect. I can only hope this scene wasn't filmed in the actual house. Towards the end I was constantly checking the bar at the bottom of my screen to see how long I had left. I kept thinking, when is this really sad part coming that will make me cry? and when the credits started rolling, I realized it never would. The fact that people are describing this piece of trash as the best movie they have ever seen boggles my mind. I'm assuming it's the first movie they have ever seen. If you want to watch a realistic romance movie, you won't find it here. Don't waste your time.
I'm a 17 year old girl, and most people would assume someone my age would fall head over heels for a movie like this. I watched expecting to see this amazingly realistic, incomparable, and tragically beautiful love story, which is how TFIOS had been described to me. After spending two hours watching this movie, I'm sitting here wondering if I'm made of stone considering I did not shed a single tear. But several movies I have watched, and stories I have read, have left me sobbing and attempting to recover for days. I have never read the book, or any of John Green's books for that matter but now I will forever hold the opinion that he is a fully grown man attempting to articulate not only the life of a teenage girl, but the life of someone suffering with a disease. The first few lines of the movie, narrated by Hazel, made me know I was going to hate this movie, since she was describing things that happened in cliché romance stories (which is exactly what this is), and how this was "true." The idea that this movie was realistic is ridiculous. First of all, a few token one-liners in the movie were clever and well written, but would never come out of a teenager's mouth. As a teenager myself, I can confirm that we are not that profound. I didn't understand the appeal that either of the main characters had in the other, other than the fact they both had cancer. Hazel was boring, and selfish, and self-pitying, and Gus was so pretentious it made me feel sick, and I never believed for a second that he was a virgin. Of course cancer is a terrible thing, as is death itself, but the fact that I didn't care about either of them, and saw them as a caricature of what John Green thinks or wants teenagers with cancer to act like, made me completely indifferent to their predictable demise. The story line with them going to Amsterdam to visit the author of their favorite book was annoying and unnecessary. Although the author was painted as this terrible person, I actually agreed everything that came out of his mouth about Hazel. I'm pretty sure the whole point of that scene was to say "hey, what can we do to make this movie even more depressing? I know, let's take the one thing that the main character cares about and destroy it, in order to make her completely dependent on her love interest." There's too many complaints I have about specific eye-roll inducing lines and scenes in this movie to even remember, but the one that angered me more than anything was when they went to the Anne Frank house. First, they tried to compare the horrible death of Anne Frank and her family, which was an outcome of the most horrible thing that has happened in human history, to these teenagers dying with cancer. As soon as they reached the top floor of the house, paying attention only to Hazel struggling to climb the stairs, in my mind I started thinking "please make them be respectful. I swear, if Gus tries to crack a self-righteous joke I will punch my laptop screen." At first, I was pleasantly surprised, because they were quiet and solemn, but then, they begin making out... Only to make it worse, everyone in the room begins clapping. Why? If I was there, I would be furious at their lack of respect. I can only hope this scene wasn't filmed in the actual house. Towards the end I was constantly checking the bar at the bottom of my screen to see how long I had left. I kept thinking, when is this really sad part coming that will make me cry? and when the credits started rolling, I realized it never would. The fact that people are describing this piece of trash as the best movie they have ever seen boggles my mind. I'm assuming it's the first movie they have ever seen. If you want to watch a realistic romance movie, you won't find it here. Don't waste your time.