Is there a way to tell a romance involving a teenage cancer patient that isn’t cheesy, exploitative, or politically regressive?
Author John Green certainly tried to find a way with his best-selling YA novel The Fault in Our Stars, which 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.
In the newly arrived trailer, 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 (in The Descendants, The Spectacular Now, and the upcoming Divergent), Shailene Woodley stars as Hazel, and she’s just as sincere, wise, and lovely as she’s ever been.
Watch the Fault in Our Stars trailer below:
