Something That Happened, Regarding "The Fault In Our Stars"

I do not do opinion-pieces often, primarily because I have nothing much to say a lot of the time, and also because this is a movie-review blog and I try to keep it that way. Despite this, however, occasionally there's something relevant or interesting that I come across, film-related, that I think is worth sharing. Tonight, this happened, and I'm going to tell you, because it's made me think and I hope it makes you think too.

I work in a cinema, and we have lately been showing the hugely popular "The Fault In Our Stars", a film I did not much like for reasons I've detailed elsewhere (emotionally manipulative, and thus emotionally dead). Still, it's a hit, and it's attracted a vast number of people, mainly women, mainly aged between 11 and 25 (and their beleaguered boyfriends). It's a curious phenomenon of a film, because it seems to have attracted a cult of sadness about it. See it. Cry. Fit in. Take a selfie of you crying. Post on Facebook. Come across as sensitive and mature.

Exhibit A-

(I found this while cleaning a screen. I call it "the snake of tears")

So, with this in mind, I have taken the film as a pinch of salt. I even commented that really, on the spectrum, the film isn't that sad, to some customers exiting. And, in all fairness, I still agree with that statement. In my opinion it's a film engineered to be sad, and that takes away from the fact that for me, for a film to be sad, it has to just happen. It's a wildly unpredictable thing, but I've cried in a lot of movies a lot of times, so I guess it's not that unpredictable. Roger Ebert said that he only cried at good people in the movies, and that's about where I stand too. Lars and the Real Girl (without which this blog would not be here) made me cry, because Lars was such a strong and virtuous character, and that touched me. Calvary made me openly weep, because Brendan Gleeson's priest is one of the most beautifully drawn, caring characters I've ever seen in a film. And so on.

Hence, The Fault In Our Stars is somewhat false, because from the outset the film is egging you on, in a way. Look, terminal illness. Ooh, she's struggling to breath now. Ooh, look how hard it is for the parents. Ooh, look at how the protagonist soldiers on. Etc, etc.

Except tonight, something happened which startled and disquieted me. A group of Spanish exchange students had come in to watch the film, and they were on the whole well-behaved. When the film kicked out, there was a lot of theatrical crying, hugging, consoling. But I can get behind that, it's a group activity and anything that promotes general human togetherness gets a free pass in my book. So that's all fine.

Except, I start to notice one girl who is really, really crying. She can't be younger than 14, and no older than 17. At first I think she's just sad from the film, but then I realise something else; this film has touched her deep, deep inside.

It's happened to me. It happened, funnily enough, with Xavier Dolan's "I Killed My Mother", which reduced me to pathetic sobs because it detailed a crumbling mother/son relationship right at a point when my relationship with my mother wasn't exactly brilliant. It happens when a film hits you hard at a personal level you're not quite expecting. It sideswipes you.

This girl, and this is pure speculation, I'm assuming has known someone or has had a close relative die of cancer. I just get that feeling. The way she was crying seemed to highlight some kind of deep, personal relation to the material. Also, not that I was eavesdropping, but she was on the phone to I presume her parents, and she kept saying the word "real" a lot, perhaps indicating that the film felt real to her. Being a student, she's clearly a long way from home and that's going to take it's toll emotionally too. I gave her tissues. The exchange chaperone person had to check if she was seriously okay. She was nearly inconsolable, and the whole situation went from mildly amusing to seriously concerning quite quickly. She left the cinema, and as far as I know is okay. I certainly hope she is.

But the incident has set me thinking. I don't think that that particular film is any definition of high art, but it's a film and thus art of some description, and for me this has simply proved the higher function of art; emotional catharsis. Art, at its best, should be like a dream. We dream, I have read, because it allows us to become accustomed to things that could happen to us, or deal with things that have happened. It's necessary to our existence. And I think that this film did that for that Spanish girl tonight. It spoke to her, on some level, about the nature of cancer, and perhaps losing a loved one; basic and arguably fundamental experiences we all go through. It clearly inspired a great emotional response, which in turn is purely indicative of her relation to the material.

It proves that film, when applied to the right person at the right time in the right circumstances, can do absolutely miraculous things. It can bring into focus where we are, at any point in time, and bring about great reflection and consideration. And that, to me, is a rather wondrous thing.

This is not to say that I rescind what I have said about The Fault In Our Stars. But that's the great thing about the subjectivity of art; it really is subjective. I think that The Fault In Our Stars is schlock, cheese and a generally poor time at the cinema. I have lost family members to cancer myself, but despite this I still felt a disconnect with the film. My experience of the illness and the film's presentation just didn't align.

But for this girl, they did. And that is why we should be thankful for films, and books, and music, and paintings and dance and sculpture and all forms of human expression. Because human expression speaks to some people more than others. Without art, we'd be a little less able to look at the very corners of our own souls, a little less capable of introspection, a little less capable of knowing ourselves.

So, it is here that I begrudgingly say thank you, to the makers of The Fault In Our Stars, for creating a film which has led to this kind of reaction in a person. And I say thank you, too, to that Spanish exchange student, because it is the kind of reaction you have had to the film; primal, raw, perhaps unwanted but necessary and beautiful all the same, which has proven the worth of film, and the worth of a film. It has brought about a facet of a human being's capacity for empathy and emotional depth.

As someone who has a lot of time and effort invested in film, that means a great deal to me.