Thursday 19 June 2014

Some Films are Greater Than Other Films . . .

And this one about tops them all.

What you want to know is whether this film ruined the book - Twilight - did it justice but only just and there were plenty of things wrong with it - Harry Potter - was satisfying and you can live with it - Divergent - or completely perfect to watch as a huge fan - The Hunger Games.

All I'm thinking about now is whether you agree with my analysis of the films listed above, but I digress.

Before I get into this I don't pretend to be a movie expert.  I don't know what makes a film good or bad.  My knowledge is pretty much whether the acting was good or not, whether the plot was good or not (or made sense) and I'm pretty sharp on my dialogue thanks to reading all day.

Well The Fault in Our Stars film had terrific acting.  It was outstanding especially Laura Dern as Hazel's mother and Ansel Elgort as Augustus Waters.  He was my perfect Gus I am telling you.  He played the part exactly as I needed it to be played.

And we don't need to talk about the plot or the dialogue because all that was covered by John  Green when writing TFIOS and it remained just as perfect as in the books.  Every time there was a direct quote I couldn't help the smile on my face.

There was also this cool detail that texts and emails would pop up onto the screen for the audience to read as Hazel does which made it more fun for the viewer and more realistic than Hazel just reading everything aloud.

Of course, what everyone is interested in is what they missed out of the film that was in the book and the more I think about it, the more I remember that wasn't included but while I was watching it, these things didn't really occur to me because I was so mesmerised by the film.  After thinking about it, the things they cut weren't vital to the plot just dustings of character here and there that a film can portray much quicker than a book can anyway so it was fine.  I didn't shout out that it was all wrong so that was good.

I don't want to give anything away because I think watching it for the first time is an experience like no other but what I will tell you is Oranjee is beautiful and the entire Amsterdam part made me want to go there myself.  And the film made me want to read the book over and over again, which was the exact feeling I had after finishing the book, so they must've done something right.

Now, you will cry, there is no doubt about it.  If you've read the book you will cry when you know something is coming up.  You may even cry at the very beginning because you can't believe you're living this.  It's very emotional.  It's spot on.  The perfect mix of light and heavy just like the book.  I cried in all the parts I cried at during the book, starting when I realised that part was coming up.  I even prepared myself, not wanting to disturb the entire room.  There was one occasion that I had to hold back my sobs and do that stupid quiet breathing not to explode and weep over Shailene and Ansel's lines and ruin it for the people (if there were any in the room) that hadn't read the book.  Because I was holding it back, I cried silently for most of the film.  But I assure you, if I had been at home, you would've thought I was losing it.

All in all, I adored the film, start to finish and could watch it again and again and again.  I just have one more thing to say before you should go and book your tickets (and stock up on tissues). 

If John Green thinks it's perfect, who am I to say otherwise?

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