Release Date: June 6, 2014
Watch Date: September 9, 2023
“Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Gus (Ansel Elgort) share a sarcastic wit, a disdain for the ordinary, and a love that sweeps them on an unforgettable journey. Although the teens face challenges, they learn that while life isn’t perfect, love is extraordinary. Laura Dern (Little Fockers) and Sam Trammel (TV’s True Blood) also star in this powerful film based on John Green’s New York Times bestseller.”
We interrupt our regularly scheduled super hero programming to give you a sappy romance movie because it was date night and Bob genuinely tried to pick a non-Disney movie but Disney owns all, so it comes out of order and it gets a review.
I feel like this movie was every where ten years ago. I feel like I’ve seen the poster a million times. That the soundtrack, which really was just the most popular songs from time it was released was blasted everywhere. That quotes have been everywhere. That is held up as one of the best romances of all time. But maybe that’s because I was a youth, and that was my perception.
Still, Bob and I have managed not to read it or watch it. We are stronger than peer pressure. Also, I prefer a romantic comedy to a romantic melodrama and Bob will always choose violence, I mean horror, or action when he’s actually given the opportunity to pick.
I kind of wish that I had watched it in my teens. I feel like the language of the two main characters was a little too contrived, a little too flowery. How teenagers think and wished they talked, but how no one really does. I’m also past my manic pixie dream girl phase, even if that manic pixie dream girl is an eighteen year old boy with one leg and a love of first person shooters. So I think had I been a bit younger, I would have definitely appreciated this more.
I’m also a cancer survivor now, which makes watching a film about the inevitably from dying of cancer feel sort of like a called shot against me. Now mine wasn’t serious, and I’ve been cancer free for two years, but I’ve also been warned it might reoccur so that just hovers in the back of my head at all times like a depressing ghost that insists on haunting me. I don’t want to think about death, and I certainly don’t want to think about how painful it would all be when your body is literally killing itself, or you’re injuring it with radiation and chemotherapy, no matter how effective and necessary it is. I like my movies to stay as far away from that reality as possible.
On top of all that, I’m a mother now. One of my biggest fears is that my children will develop a terminal illness and that I will have to make life altering decisions for them and still might have to watch them die. My heart breaks for all of the characters parents in this film, and I know it’s meant to be about teens whose lives are too short and who have to pack as much as they can in the short time they have, and who feel responsible for their parents and worry about the lives of the people they’re going to leave behind.
It all hit way too deeply for me, and I’m not sure it hit in the ways it would have as a teenager. As a teenager it would have been a star crossed lovers story, a sad one for sure, but I could have just looked at the romance and been completely satisfied with that.
Bob, it turns out, is a big sap though, and he loved it. Considered it an immediate classic. Cuddled up and soaked up every minute and, I will admit, had a lot of his own romantic proclamations to make afterwards which I absolutely did appreciate. Would you be able to make me watch this film again any time soon? Probably not. Because I don’t want to be sad, and I don’t like to have a lingering sadness after movies. But at the same time, I do enjoy some extra romance on date night, so possibly I could be convinced into it again.
If you’re a teenager, I think you’ll adore this movie. If you’re an adult, have had cancer, or are a parent, go into it knowing it might hit differently, and to be prepared that while some parts might seem contrived and shallow other parts might just feel a little too real.
Doc and Bob's Disney Adventure 
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