BP #7: I Love Fault In Our Stars. And I'm A Guy.
So a few weeks ago I went to see Fault In Our Stars for the second time. Yes I saw it twice. Two times. On two different occasions. After I saw it the first time, I went to a party, and the stub fell out of my pocket, and one of my bros, laughed at me.
“You girl,” he said.
I didn’t care. I ended high school at the height of my popularity. This stuff didn’t bother me anymore.
But I started to think more and more about it, and the angrier I got. Just because I’m a guy, was a suppose to NOT like one of the best movies of year. Was I not suppose to go see it.
And it dawned on me that if I let social norms dictate what I see and don’t see, I would have missed out on a very impactful movie.
Fault, as I will refer to it in this post, is a movie about two star-crossed lovers who meet at a cancer support group. It’s about true love, but it’s not one of those cheesy, everything ends okay after the conflict, type of films. Its dark, and sad, and it tugged on your heart strings at times, especially for a person who has had someone die from cancer like me.
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS PASS THIS POINT.
Hazel Grace, as Augustus refers to her in the film, is a girl living on borrowed time. She carries around an oxygen tank just to breathe. She isn’t the happiest person in the world, but she’s not all doom and gloom either. She has a dark humor about her as she jokes many times about her situation throughout the film.
And then comes along Augustus Waters. Augustus is my favorite character throughout the whole film. He’s funny, and smart, and speaks like he has the world figured out. But it is toward the end of the film, when he starts to die from his cancer, that he truly is transformed into my favorite. You see him go from funny joking teen, to crying, dying teen throughout the film. And while it’s heart breaking, it's also true of us. We too go through these up and downs. And sometimes we feel that when we are down, we did something wrong. But the truth is, its normal. It’s okay!
Then Of course there’s Iaac, but I won’t got into his greatness right now.
Earlier I mentioned the great writing in this film. That is partially due to John Green, the author of the original novel. While some might consider it too preachy at time, I loved every moment of it. From their Okays, to their quoting of Imperial Affliction, every time they talked, I felt like I was finding new twitter bio quotes.
Here are some of my Favorites:
“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once”
Alright John Green, way to make me fall even more with this romance. It’s things like this that made this book feel not only real, but relatable. I remember when I had my first crush. Ah 7th grade year. Her locker was right next to mine. And I remember falling deeply in ‘7th grade’ love with her all at once. And this quote reminds of that time.
“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations”
This one gives me chills. Sometimes when I write it seems that I just can’t get my thought out of my head and onto paper.
“You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”
Almost everyone has heard this quote. Whether it is in a trailer or on a billboard, it’s kind of been THE quote for the movie. It’s so sweet and so painful at the same time. But it's true of us. In life we are going to get hurt. We are going to go through things. But sometimes we still choose to do things, knowing they have certain outcomes.
“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”
This one is my favorite. Yes it’s long but it’s the one that broke my heart into a million tiny little pieces. Sometimes, we look so much to the future, even though it’s not guaranteed to us. Even now as I write this, I’m looking forward to posting it at a later date. Because I have this notion that my time is promised to me, even though its not. And that’s really the whole point of this EPIC story. While its a great love story, with great lovers, at its core, that’s what its about.
You have a certain number of days you will live on this earth. That’s a given. But what you do with those day is up to you. So whether you choose to help save the w
world, or have your own little love story, make it yours.
Make it your own little infinity, with a set number of days.
Okay?
Okay,
Eichel
