4) The Fault In Our Stars
While I’d argue that Shailene Woodley completism is in itself a worthwhile endeavour, and provides enough justification for seeing The Fault in Our Stars, this film has a little bit more going for it. I wouldn’t say I was as into it as many critics (Richard Roeper found it transcendent!), but it’s one of those movies that will get unfairly dismissed because of its subject matter and its romantic angle—like The Notebook but with cancer.
The problem I had with it was the inability to get over how incredibly irritating the Augustus Waters character was for me. I understood, eventually, through deduction, that he was probably supposed to be a little annoying at first, but he was supposed to win us over with his teenage charm. But instead, every detail about him upset me, right until the end: the weird unlit cigarette gag that he maintains throughout, his insistence on calling her “Hazel Grace” (don’t you know people IRL like that? Aren’t they the worst??), his impossible levels of generosity when it comes to time and attention, not to mention money.
But ultimately, I reminded myself that the movie’s not meant for me, at least not exactly. There’s a “dream boy” aspect to Gus that I tend to forgive, probably unfairly, when it comes to manic pixie dream girl characters. Once I was able to watch it from that perspective, I concluded that if the gender roles were reversed, I’d probably dig the movie, and this was humbling and enlightening for me. And even if this didn’t make it worth watching, Willem Dafoe and Laura Dern are both tremendous.