The Fault in Our Stars

Review by Pamela Zoslov

In the interest of providing the best possible review for you, readers — assuming there are any of you out there — I took the time to read The Fault in Our Stars, the best-selling young-adult novel by John Green, on which the new movie of the same title is based. I have recently developed a passing interest in YA literature, as they call it in the publishing trade, because the storytelling is agreeably clear and direct, if you don't mind that the adolescent narrators sound like 40-year-old adults.

TFIOS, as it's known to its young devotees, is a particularly well-written example. The story of two teenagers with terminal cancer who fall in love, it is filled with references literary, philosophical and scientific, and features a sardonic and preternaturally wise narrator in 16-year-old Hazel, whose metastatic thyroid cancer has afflicted her lungs, condemning her to spending her remaining days wearing a nasal cannula and wheeling around an oxygen tank. She is resilient, though. Having earned her GED, she takes college classes and, in the book at least, liberally quotes T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare and William Carlos Williams. Hazel is less concerned about herself than about her doting parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell), worrying about what will become of them after she dies. This is a cancer story that scoffs at the clichés of cancer, with wisecracks about support groups, “cancer perks” — gifts and privileges given to kids with cancer — and the Last Good Day, a pain-free oasis just before the cancer sufferer dies. The narrative is filled with knowing, bitterly funny references about the experience of terminal illness.

The Spectacular Now

Review by Pamela Zoslov

Sutter Keely, the high school senior at the center of THE SPECTACULAR NOW, is a believer in “living in the now” — not because he's a Buddhist or an adherent of Eckhart Tolle, but because it's his nature to resist change. An easygoing kid, he's content with his lackluster grades and his job at a men's clothing store. Unlike his friends, he has no plans to go to college. Miles' secure little world is shaken when his pretty blond girlfriend, Cassidy (Brie Larsson) dumps him, sending him on a painful emotional journey.

Directed by James Ponsoldt and written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (500 DAYS OF SUMMER), THE SPECTACULAR NOW takes a seemingly prosaic young-adult story and transforms it, through the alchemy of expert handling, into something extraordinary. The story, adapted from a novel by Tim Tharp, has the soggy elements of a Nicholas Sparks weepie: divorced parents, an absent alcoholic dad, a troubled teen romance. Yet there is depth here, enhanced by strong casting, confident direction, understated cinematography and insightful writing. (Happily, the movie also has none of the grating “quirkiness” of 500 DAYS OF SUMMER.)