An extended trailer has been released for The Fault in Our Stars, and it goes a long way in translating to a three-minute format one of the chief pleasures of John Green’s YA novel: the book’s witty, SAT vocab-friendly banter.
In small doses, as in the previous trailer, the dialogue between besotted teenage cancer patients Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Augustus (Ansel Elgort) came across as cutesy and overly quippy. In the new spot, it’s easy to see how their sesquipedalian conversations are part of their unique bond: they share the same precocious language, thrill each other with wordplay, and express their affection for each other with sincerity and specificity.
The Fault in Our Stars centers on 16-year-old Hazel, a shy, book-smart girl with a great deal of guilt over how much her illness has burdened her family. Given her sense of indebtedness to her loved ones, she’s reluctant to get close to anyone else. That is, until she meets Augustus, another introverted, intelligent, terminally ill teen.
The film adaptation looks like it hews closely to Green’s talky dialogue and resistance to overt sentimentality, while lighting up Hazel and Augustus’ romance in warm, bright colors and appropriately autumnal tones. As part of her new career plan to collect as many of the best teen girl roles as her schedule allows (inThe Descendants, The Spectacular Now, and Divergent), Woodley is just as sincere, wise, and lovely as she’s ever been.
The Fault in Our Stars opens June 6.
