So much of what worked on the page—and made Green’s writing so lively and engaging—gets lost in translation and feels uncomfortably precocious when actual people actually say his words out loud. (Screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who also wrote the romantic charmers "(500) Days of Summer" and "The Spectacular Now," remained very faithful to the book, which should make the core tween/teen fan base happy. Okay? Okay.)

There’s a specificity to Green’s language; his characters are hyper-verbal, self-aware and fiercely biting in the tradition of "Heathers" and "Clueless." They know all too well that pop culture depicts cancer—especially young people with cancer—in a mawkish manner that they refuse to accept as they regard their own conditions. But while the flip, jaunty verbosity they use as a shield produces some pleasingly acerbic humor, it often feels forced and false in this setting.

Still, Shailene Woodley’s abiding, disarming naturalism consistently keeps you engaged. She just doesn’t hit a false note. Following winning turns in the indie dramas "The Descendants" and "The Spectacular Now," and the blockbuster "Divergent," Woodley continues to cement her accessible and likable on-screen persona. Her work is so strong, it makes you wish she had a better performance to play off of to create the sparky chemistry at the heart of this story.

Woodley stars as Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old Indianapolis girl who’s diagnosed with cancer at 13. It weakens her lungs, forcing her to drag an oxygen tank behind her wherever she goes and to stop to rest after climbing a flight of stairs. While her situation looked bleak a few years ago, participation in a new drug trial has prolonged her life for an indefinite amount of time. Her parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell, with whom she shares some lovely, honest moments) try not to hover over their daughter as she attempts to maintain some vague semblance of teenage life, and they even share her fondness for using dark humor to defuse difficult moments.

Mom insists that Hazel attends weekly cancer support group meetings (where comedian Mike Birbiglia is the amusingly earnest leader). There, she meets the handsome and equally loquacious Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort, who coincidentally played Woodley’s brother earlier this year in "Divergent"). A former high school basketball star, Augustus lost his right leg below the knee to the disease and now walks with a prosthetic. In Hazel, he immediately recognizes a kindred spirit: a quick-witted smart-ass who can’t take any of the feel-good platitudes seriously.

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