The Fault In Our Stars (2014)

These days, young-adult fiction is everywhere: dystopian stories of moody youths undergoing strife, war and heartache, as in The Hunger Games or Divergent, are dominating the bestseller lists and popping up in cineplexes. What’s so unusual about The Fault In Our Stars, an adaptation of John Green’s best-selling novel, is that it locates the dystopia and war within the bodies of its teenage protagonists. These kids aren’t battling an evil regime or fascist overlords; they’re struggling to survive against the merciless onslaught of cancer. Green’s book is a bit of an odd beast: touching but manipulative, genuine and fake, all at the same time. The resulting film, being hugely faithful to its source material, thus manages to pull off the same curious trick of overwhelming and underwhelming the viewer, often in the same breath.

Hazel (Shailene Woodley) has been living with – or dying of – terminal cancer for years. Her concerned parents (Mike Trammell: under-used; and Laura Dern: wonderfully sympathetic) fuss around her constantly, wanting her to live what life is left to her after the treatments and exhaustion have taken their toll. And so Hazel attends a support group for kids stricken with cancer. One day, she meets Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), a charming, sweet kid whose remission came at the price of a leg. They share an immediate connection, one that deepens as they bond over Hazel’s favourite book: An Imperial Affliction, penned by reclusive author Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe). Knowing how much it means to Hazel, Augustus resolves to get her the answers she seeks about the novel – even if they have to travel all the way to Amsterdam to get them.

If that sounds like a recipe for melodrama, that’s because it is. There’s plenty of that in store, of course, because these kids are dealing with the worst and most traumatic of experiences, at a time when they should be healthy and carefree. But the film, as did the novel, does a pretty good job of maintaining a spark of cheeky life amidst all the doom and gloom. Hazel and Augustus trade banter as easily as they do insults, and the affection that grows between them is as entertaining as it is affecting. Woodley and Elgort share a gentle chemistry that works very well, whether they’re in the throes of first love or battling through the trenches of disease side by side. Their friendship with Isaac (Nat Wolff), the boy who loses his sight to eye cancer and his girlfriend to her self-absorption, is wonderfully bittersweet too – together, the trio ride the lows of Isaac’s depression, and the highs of his tiny moment of vengeance.

But, for everything that feels raw and real in the film, The Fault In Our Stars also comes across as overly plotted. Hazel and Augustus are designed specifically to break your heart and swell your tear ducts, which is why their relationship can sometimes feel painstakingly constructed. They are, quite literally, made for each other, which weighs down rather than frees the story in which they find themselves. Their interactions with the troubled, prickly Van Houten also lose some impact in the move away from the page, where his words, ideas and general depravity can take fuller form. In the film, Dafoe ensures that Van Houten remains tough to like, but the character’s rougher edges are sanded away in a half-hearted bid for redemption.

Ultimately, the film – which lifts entire lines and scenes wholesale from Green’s text – triumphs and suffers where the book does. The relationship between Hazel and Augustus, when stripped to its core, is a heart-breaking/warming account of a soul-deep connection that matters all the more for its tragic brevity. There’s a lot of welcome, saddening depth in the film, too, about the everyday heroism of children being forced to live on the brink of death everyday. But this is also a deliberately manipulative tale, one that hinges on an awkward twist (present in both book and film) that practically dares you not to care and cry about what’s going on. It’s an effective tactic, for the most part, but one that doesn’t earn so much as exhaust its audiences’ affections.

Basically: A very faithful adaptation of an affecting but troubled novel.

Divergent (2014)

When beloved books make their way to the silver screen, the resulting movies are usually met with much frustration and rending of clothes from amongst the literary faithful. A character is changed beyond recognition; a crucial plot-point excised; an important theme lost in the murk and swell of a film. Oddly, Divergent isn’t actually a bad adaptation. In fact, Neil Burger’s film is as good a version of Veronica Roth’s wildly patchy source novel as you’re likely to get. Whether that makes for a good movie – especially for people who’ve never read the book – is another matter entirely.

Divergent begins in a post-apocalyptic Chicago divided into five factions, each valuing one virtue – Dauntless (courage), Erudite (wisdom), Candour (honesty), Amity (kindness) and Abnegation (self-sacrifice) –  above all others. It’s an odd system, perhaps, but one that is apparently necessary to keep chaos at bay. Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) has been raised in Abnegation but, try as she might, she cannot completely subsume her self or her desires. Indeed, the aptitude test that everyone must take at the age of sixteen suggests that Tris doesn’t belong in just one category: she is Divergent, equally at home in three factions.

Come the day of the Choosing Ceremony, she decides to forsake her family to become Dauntless: a decision that plunges her into a nightmare initiation process in which the weakest are summarily kicked out of the faction. As Tris navigates the politics and perils of her chosen world, trying all the while to hide the fact that she’s Divergent, she encounters her fair share of allies – Christina (Zoe Kravitz), Will (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) and possibly her charmingly broody instructor Four (Theo James) – and enemies, including the brutal Eric (Jai Courtney) and vicious Peter (Miles Teller).

Anyone unfamiliar with Roth’s book might find themselves trying to puzzle through this seemingly shapeless mess of a plot. It ebbs and flows in odd directions, dancing around Tris’ desire to be true to herself, before it gets a little lost in the dystopian clutches of Jeanine Matthews (a gleefully icy, evil Kate Winslet), an Erudite leader hellbent on bringing down the entire Abnegation faction. Along the way, Tris literally battles her fears under the influence of a simulation serum, toughens up physically, strikes up a sexy chemistry with Four and frets over her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort). Within the confines of this universe, it makes an odd kind of narrative sense, but the logic of it all never really bleeds through.

Here’s the thing, though: this strange, frequently illogical plotting is very much a defining characteristic of Roth’s novel – and, in fact, becomes more of a problem as the trilogy progresses. (Anyone who’s read Allegiant, the controversial final novel in the series, will know just how difficult it will be to adapt.) The emotional and logical flaws present in Divergent the film, then, are – for the most part – already inherent in the book. Why does Jeanine, supposedly one of the smartest people in the community, plot and plan the way she does? How does the entire society function in this utterly dysfunctional way? Technically, Burger can’t really be faulted for failing to develop a coherence and logic that was never there in the first place.

In fact, Burger actually substantially improves upon the novel in several ways – he keeps the film mostly free of Tris’ inner voice, which becomes increasingly moony and silly as her crush on Tobias grows by the day. Burger plays up a zip-line sequence that highlights the joyful recklessness of the Dauntless, as Tris soars freely through the midnight air. He also handles the problem of Tris’ fear landscape very well: instead of simply willing herself out of the influence of the serum (as the Divergent can do), she must figure out how to face each of her fears in a non-Divergent way. These scenes are shot with quick, simple visual flair, dispensing with some of the novel’s trickier convolutions.

Of course, Divergent isn’t a perfect adaptation either. To Roth’s credit, there are some truly dark, painful moments in the novel which transcend its loopy narrative. It’s no surprise, and yet it’s a little disappointing, that these bits simply vanish from the film, no doubt in the interests of securing a PG-13 rating. As a result, Peter is a far less repulsive antagonist than he is on paper. For instance, he doesn’t brutally (and casually) maul a fellow initiate who’s doing better than him in the rankings – an incident that’s crucial in the development of his character in the subsequent novels.

The young cast works hard and quite well together. Woodley makes for an intriguing screen presence, effectively playing both the steel and softness of Tris’ choices. James, heretofore best known for dying in Lady Mary’s bed in Downton Abbey, acquits himself reasonably well – he’s not as leaden as some of the trailers have suggested, and he forges a believable chemistry with Woodley. Of the supporting players, Teller is the standout, so good in his easy malevolence that he actually makes the thought of an Allegiant movie quite appealing.

In the final analysis, Divergent is likely to divide audiences. Fans of Roth’s books should be, on the whole, pleased. This is a frequently very good, intelligent adaptation of a rather problematic novel. Everyone else, however, might be less enamoured of the final product: a film that, just like the book on which it is based, boasts a compelling story and some great ideas, but is also messily executed, overly complicated and a tad nonsensical.

Basically: Watchable if odd and slightly confusing for newbies. For fans, it’s a good adaptation of a problematic novel – so good that it suffers from many of the book’s flaws.