Movies; they can lift us up or bring us down. They fill us with so many different emotions that sometimes it is difficult to stop and smell the roses so-to-speak when we find a film, or films, that really stick out to us. Films that teach us lessons or give us new perspectives on everyday situations that we go through as we grow older, those are the films we need to hold onto.
Two movies that have really affected me that I have held onto is The Fault In Our Stars and Paper Towns. Both films fall under some of the same genres, such as romance, drama and comedy. The films both feature a main character as the narrator of the story and include side characters, adventures and heart break.
The Fault In Our Stars centers around a girl named Hazel Grace who happens to have cancer, she meets a boy named Agustus at a cancer support group and they begin a friendship that grows tremendously with some bumpy roads along the way. The second movie, Paper Towns, centers around Quentin. A nerdy sort of young man who is not very social, he is in his last year of high school and happens to be gigantically over the top in love with his neighbor since they were kids. A girl by the name of Margo Roth Spiegleman. Q and Margo were great friends when they first met but that friendship quickly dwindled as the years went on. Suddenly one night Margo appears back in Q's life, asking him a favor and then completely vanished when it's over. Quentin is left with so many questions with answers that could only come from her. So he now must go on an adventure to find her and find the truth of all her crazy antics.
The main characters in both movies fall in love but in different ways. In Paper Towns, Quentin has been in love with Margo ever since they were kids but in The Fault In Our Stars, Hazel Gracd falls in love with Augustus over time through their blossoming friendship. Both characters take risks for themselves to be with the other person romantically, they end up in heartbreak in a 50/50 tie between beauty & sadness. They end up learning great lessons and having great memories to take with them and apply to their lives in the future.
In these films is also adventure, a good chunk of it! Like I have previously stated, Q goes on an adventure with Margo. This adventure between these two includes driving all around Florida, leaving raw fish in someone's closet, and shaving one eyebrow off of a bully while he sleeps. The laughs and anxiousness never ends with those two as they push each other into new ways of thinking and living.
The Fault In Our Stars adventures include a big trip to Amsterdam to meet a favorite author of both of the main characters. They go to dinner, see the Anne Frank house and fall in love on this trip of a lifetime. The memories made are ones they can keep forever and makes the audience realize that they should treasure every moment of every day because they never know what life could end.
The films have life lessons as well as great, realistic characters. One thing we learned from both films is to make every moment count as if it were your last. Life is too short and too precious to let things get this down and not enjoy the people in environment around us. Another lesson that we can take away is that people are just people, they come and go into our lives as quick as the wind blows the leaves off of the trees during a storm. People either are great blessings or teach us great lessons throughout the years. One person is not greater than another because of their status or circumstances. Underneath all of our exteriors, we know for a fact that we are all made of the same things, such as bones, skin, organs, blood, etc.
These movies were also books before they appeared on the big screen. Author John Green of Indianapolis, Indiana wrote both of them and helped with the movies as well. Like Paper Towns and The Fault In Our Stars, John has also written a few other books that include Looking For Alaska, Will Grayson Will Grayson... and more. The films adventures had to be real, as real as they were in the books but even more-so on screen. For further examples, like in Paper Towns, Q & some of his friends go on a road trip to New York. In real-life the film crew and cast had to travel in film there for several scenes. In the movie The Fault In Our Stars, Hazel Grace & Augustus go to Amaterdam. Where in real life the cast and crew had to travel there to shoot some of the film. Another thing about these two films is that they are the closest I have seen of book to movie adaptions. They are very much spot on but as many people know, you can not have every single detail from a book into the film. There are differences too.
The affect these movies had on me was quite a big one. I feel like personally, I have grown a bit more after applying some things I learned from both films to my own life. Some lessons I have learned for example is to truly cherish every moment you have with anyone and everyone. Whether that be friends or family, teachers or bosses, even strangers you me on the street. Cherish the moments and memories and savor the stories they tell you. I have also learned that to have better viewpoint on every situation I am in; I look at problems I face from both perspectives, make lists of the blessings and consequences of future decisions, things like that. The last thing is that I have been opened up to a whole new type of writing style by reading this authors books. I have never seen or heard of someone talk, explain and write the way John Green does. He is so in sync with each character and the growth of that character, it is truly incredible. Since reading a few of his books and watching a few interviews of them, I have learned to pay more attention to certain things while I write and that is a true blessing.
At the end of the day it boils down to choices; how do people want to live and what do people want to be. That when someone sees or hears something of value, just hold onto it. Savor it and apply it to their life. When you find something or someone good, cherish them and grow with them. Try to find the good in everything and never stop learning from anything or anyone.
