Buckets of Humor and Romance in The Fault in Our Stars, the Book and the Feature Film
“The Fault in Our Stars“ is the sixth novel by John Green. published in January 2012. It has a feature film, which is an adaptation of the novel directed by John Boone and starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort and Natt wolf, was released on June—6- 2014.In the world of book adaptations, ”The Fault in Our Stars“ was a strong, critical, and commercial success. The director did a great job of bringing author John Green‘s novel to the big screen, however, he also trimmed the fat from the novel as by cutting out some of the minor details and background stories. Although reading the book offers major detail and offers the reader to view the world from the perspective of a character. A book is always more intimate than a movie screening.
Both “The Fault in Our Stars“ and novel portray to not let the audience watch the end with dry eyes. This movie illustrates almost every significant detail possible, however, at the same time lacks some major events and characters as well novel. For example, in the movie Hazel Grace lets a little girl try her oxygen at the mall. The scene in the book, in which she is explaining her tank and what is does to a precocious kid named Jackie is cut out for time. The mall scene is reduced and the explanation is cut out. Also characters such as Isaac who was an important character, and a common friend of Hazel and Augustus- the story has been changed and not reflected properly. His story is a little more light-hearted in the film than in the book because presumably, the filmmakers did not want the audience to pay too much attention to the awful reality of going blind. The film instead opts to focus entirely on the love story, which is not only understandable but sensible too.
Still the movie missed Isaac‘s amusing jokes which would have added humor to the movie. In the book, Augustus Walters‘ parents do not let him take Hazel downstairs unsupervised to watch “V for Vendetta”. Instead, they let him show her the basement and then watch the Natalie Portman film in the living room. However in the movie, Augustus and Hazel go straight downstairs without any parental guidance, which as a result raises more tension rather than their sitting with their parents. Moreover, there are no mentions of two really important characters in the movie. One of them is, Caroline Mathers who never comes between Augustus and Hazel. Caroline was Augustus‘s former girlfriend, who dies of brain cancer a few years ago and weight heavily on Hazel‘s mind in the book. In the movie, there is no mention of Caroline or the effect her death had on Augustus. Mentioning the girl could have added more depth to the character of Augustus Waters.
The other character that was not mentioned is Kaitlin. She was Hazel‘s friend in the novel who helped speed on Hazel‘s romance with Augustus, as well as the latest fashions, Furthermore, there is a very emotional scene in which Hazel puts he “ Desperately Lonely swing set“ up for sale. Although the swing set exists in the movie, it is never put up for sale. Augustus‘s family is less apparent in the movie . Augustus Waters, unlike Hazel, is from a larger family unit. He has two sisters who are married, a slew of nephews and 2 parents who play a larger part in the novel. Also, the movie left out an important scene in which Hazel and Mrs. Lancaster hear Augustus crying and yelling at his mom before they leave for their trip to Amsterdam. In the book, that conversation foreshadows the return of Augustus‘s cancer.
The time spent on Augustus‘s cancer in the movie is fairly short as the director spares its audience from the horrible details of the enigmatic teen wetting his bed and dying horribly. Josh Boone‘s film shortens a few of the book‘s best scenes. There is a scene at a gas station, where a panicked Augustus wants to do something for himself without people frowning over him. There is a less exhilarating picnic by the skeleton sculpture and a pre funeral where Hazel, Isaac and the audience really get to say their goodbye‘s. Weeks and months of time are shortened into just a few minutes, but its still effective. For the movie, Boone decided to leave out Hazel‘s disdain for all the facebook comments people wrote following Augustus‘s death. In the book, Hazel is infuriated by all the clichéd sentiments and rashly posts something critical of another commenter, assuming Augustus would have despised the sympathy notes.
In the book Hazel searches everywhere for that “letter, “ Augustus wrote for her , She looks at his parents‘ house and on his computer before his father tells her that there are some torn-out pages of his notebook missing. After having no luck finding them, she emails Pete Van Hutten’s assistant, Lideway, to see is Augustus sent the pages to their “favorite author“. As it turns out, Augustus did send them to him. In the movie, Hazel finds the pages in her car after she‘s bombarded by Van Hutten at Augustus‘s funeral. In the end, not every moment from chapter 25 of the book would be able to make it Into the 125 minutes of movie. But fans of the book notice differences in every book-to-film adaptation. Even if it is the most faithful book-to-film adaptation. This story by John Green was unflinchingly honest without being grueling and has buckets of humor and romance, so is the movie by Josh Broome.
