I meant to get this post published aaaages ago, but I've been busy busy busy, what with my final exams last week. And since I finished them, I've surprisingly found it quite difficult to adjust to my newfound freedom. I've ended up just whittling away the days doing absolutely nothing productive… (basically I've just been playing Sims!) until I suddenly just thought "No more!" I decided that I want to try and construct some sort of schedule for myself, that I will actually stick to, and set myself kind-of-deadlines to get posts published by, because otherwise I'll just keep pushing the posts back each day, which does not give me a good sense of fulfilment at all! Okay, so I'm thinking three posts a week-ish. Yeah. That seems reasonable... ;)
Right, that's the end of my babbling - here's the actual post! On Friday 12th June 2014, I attended the exclusive UK fan screening of The Fault in Our Stars at my local cinema. This was a one-off event that was happening at precisely 6:30pm all over the UK, so fans from all across the nation were all experiencing the film at the exact same time, which I thought was insanely cool!
With a ticket to this event, we were entitled to the opportunity to see the movie a week before its official release date in the UK, watch a recorded Q&A session with the main cast, director, producer, and the book's incredible author John Green (just give me a sec while I finish fangirling inside), in addition to receiving this special pass on a proper lanyard (I felt so important wearing it!) and a HUGE limited edition movie poster. Like, seriously, the poster is massive - bigger than A1 size, I reckon!
First of all, just before the film started, a recorded message from John Green was played to us, addressing us as fans from the UK, so it felt really personal - it was so exciting! Everyone in the cinema was fangirling sooo much - it was basically just like Tumblr, but in real life. It was very surreal...
The film itself was simply beautiful. As John Green said in the Q&A session after the film was shown, the filmmaking team didn't 'Hollywood-ise' the film in the slightest. It felt like a true love story with real ups and downs, as opposed to a typical love story, where everything is just perfect and amazing all the time. And even though it was an extremely sad story, there were so many funny lines in just the right places that made everyone in the cinema burst out laughing while tears were still streaming down our faces!
I can also say that the story in the film was very faithful to the story in the book; obviously there were some bits that were missed out, as there's only two hours to fit the whole thing into. A few bits were also altered, because the book is from Hazel's point of view with a lot of her thoughts and feelings written down for the reader to see explicitly, so obviously things had to be adapted slightly by the film crew to make her feelings come across better on screen. I think that anything that was missed out was not crucial to the telling of the story, and by missing these extra unnecessary details out, it meant that there was more time to really indulge in the more pivotal and touching moments of the film.
Ah, I almost forgot to mention the soundtrack to the film - it was practically perfect. I'd actually listened to the soundtrack quite a lot on Spotify in the weeks leading up to the film's release, so I'd gotten to know the songs quite well in advance. When I finally did hear them along with the movie, I found that each track was placed at such perfectly fitting moments in the film, and I just think the film crew really captured the mood of the film and the kind of music that would best suit it.
Overall, I'd definitely say that it's a film that everyone needs to see! It most definitely joins The Perks of Being a Wallflower on my list of must-see-films. These two films really struck a chord with me; the casts and crews of these films didn't require amazing special effects or a ridiculous budget to make good films, they just told the stories beautifully. It may be something to do with the fact that both of these films were originally books, which were then converted into films, so there seems more depth to the story lines… perhaps. Stories like these just seem so true and once you've seen them on the big screen, I think they make you value the life that you have, as well as your friends and loved ones a whole lot more.
So, if you haven't seen The Fault in Our Stars yet (which is very unlikely, seeing as it's out in cinemas everywhere now, I believe), I would urge you to definitely go and see it. And if you haven't read the book, go do that too!
