Thursday 19 June 2014

Film: The Fault in Our Stars

I haven't read the book on which the film, The Fault in Our Stars, is based. And I don't normally go to teen movies. But the trailer for this didn't look too bad, and it is very highly rated on IMDB. And that makes me surprised that the thing is only showing on Thursdays! Maybe it just hasn't officially premiered yet, or maybe there's a symbolism to it, I dunno. But anyway, along I trotted tonight. Literally, as it was on in one of the cinemas I can walk to - the local Cineworld. So, given that they give a discount for booking, that is what I did.

As I was heading out the door, my flatmate was getting ready to watch the match. Couldn't believe I wasn't going to watch it. As I passed the local pub, they were just playing the national anthem. Hey-ho. I wished them well and continued on my way.

Naturally, my card didn't work at the cinema. Neither was there anyone on-hand who could have helped me to retrieve my booking. Be warned - make sure you have your booking reference number when you come here. Which I did, and made my confused way upstairs. Complicated cinema, this. I had chosen a particular seat during the booking process, but discovered, when I got in, that I was to be sitting right beside a large group of teenage friends. Eh, no thanks. I took the one behind instead. Handy for them too, for when yet another friend took up and was glad to get the seat I should have had!

And so to the film. For those who don't know, this is about a teenage boy and girl, both cancer sufferers, who meet in a cancer support group and fall in love. As the tag line goes, "Cry hard with a vengeance". Her parents are played by Laura Dern and Sam Trammell, who has one of the least notable parts in the entire film, and very little to do. Willem Dafoe shows up as the irascible author of our heroine's favourite book, whom she - or rather her boyfriend - contacts to ask him some questions about it. And I knew I recognised his assistant from somewhere - she's played by Lotte Verbeek, who, it turns out, played Giulia Farnese in The Borgias. Well, put her in period costume - or at least put her hair up - and I'd have known her immediately!

Well, they're absolutely right. This is a Grade-A weepie. I didn't think, for the longest time, that it was going to get me, but it did. I don't think it'd be too much of an exaggeration to say that there wasn't a dry eye in the house by the end. There was snuffling from all sides. The poor girl behind me asked me for a tissue, but I didn't have a clean one. The guys were at it too. It's inevitable, really. I thought the lead guy was going to irritate me - he looks a bit like someone I used to know, and didn't like much - but he even won me over! These kids are unfeasibly intelligent, witty, good-looking and spot-free. They're great fun to be around, and should have everything to live for. And cancer is taking everything from them. You don't have a hope of not crying at this. Bring a hankie. Bring several - you can pass them around.

Rest assured though, it's absolutely not mawkish. I can actually recommend it.

Oh, and it's not a spoiler to say they go to Amsterdam in the course of the story. It does appear in the trailer, after all. And looking lovely too. And it's nice to see what's in the attic of the Anne Frank house - I didn't make it up that final ladder, myself. Although WHAT a girl with an oxygen tank was doing, dragging herself first up all those steep stairs, and finally up a ladder, is beyond me. And it's a bit incredible to me to think that a local, as their companion, the author's assistant, likely is, didn't know there wasn't a lift. But anyway.

So anyway, back to Ireland tomorrow, and on Saturday we have tickets to the Bill Whelan Gala Celebration at the University Concert Hall. Sold out now, we have seats one behind the other - there was only one left in her preferred row! (That's the one with the aisle in front.) Broadcast live on Lyric FM, it features the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, with James Galway on flute. Bill Whelan is the chap that wrote the original Riverdance Suite, on which the subsequent enormously successful stage franchise was based. And it's all in conjunction with Limerick being City of Culture this year.

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