The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

Am I on a romantic drama kick? No, these things just happen sometimes. I checked my Netflix queue to make sure the next delivery is different.

Modern Indianapolis teen Hazel has cancer in her thyroid and lungs. She shows signs of depression until she finally clicks with someone in her support group: slightly older teen Gus, whose bone cancer cost him a leg. Hazel has a policy against getting too close to anyone, since her condition limits how much they're likely to do together, but he's just so endearing....

What ensues is mostly a series of minor events that don't blatantly push the plot forward so much as cement the budding relationship. Unsurprisingly, the plot thickens most when one of the two has a flare-up. Nevertheless, the story aptly reminds us that people with severe medical problems are not defined by those problems. They can have interesting personalities like anyone else. And these two are pretty bright as teens go. Moderately rebellious, but I'd give them a pass under the circumstances.

The movie is relatively credible. Only a couple characters feel exaggerated, not impossibly but triggering my doubts. A highly religious support group leader tries to look cool to the kids and unknowingly fails hard enough to make me cringe (probably the funniest element outside of snark). When Gus helps Hazel reach the Amsterdam-based author of her favorite (fictitious) book only to discover how drunkenly bitter and biting he's become, they learn what Deadpool learned more facetiously: "Never meet your heroes." The other slightly over-the-top character is Gus' friend, Isaac, who has trouble coping with an abrupt breakup in connection with his imminent loss of eyes to cancer.

It occurs to me that Hazel makes a good example of the peculiar quality of being both lucky and unlucky. Among patients in similar straits, she has exceeded her expected lifespan considerably. And as the occasional first-person narration hints, she's still alive at the end of the feature. It just isn't always easy for her to appreciate that status when she needs to carry a breathing apparatus everywhere and the people she most relates to are fading fast.

TFiOS gets tragic, of course, but I found my spirits up as often as down. For such an ugly fate, there's a beautiful tale to tell about these (shooting) stars.