Based on a book about a girl's dying wish of meeting the author of her favorite book, it doesn't get much more self-serving than "The Fault in Our Stars," a tedious, young-adult fiction tear-jerker concerning a romance between two cancer kids in addition to the annoying author. I viewed this Hollywood adaptation after seeing the Bollywood version, "Dil Bechara," for which I now have a greater appreciation in comparing it to its American counterpart. The Indian movie replaces the book-within-a-book with an unfinished song (Bollywood's reputed fondness for lousy tunes proving true again), but more importantly it adds a cinematically reflexive layer by adding a film-within-the-film and equating the story's fatalistic narrative with cinema itself. Now that's a metaphor--a much more interesting one than that stupid unlit cigarette. Albeit, the rest of "Dil Bechara" is melodramatic drivel just as with "The Fault in Our Stars," but at least there was the skeleton of a compelling idea there and not merely a couple trips to Funky Bones park and a revolting make-out session at the Anne Frank House.

The one thing "The Fault in Our Stars" does better is story continuity, but that's just the stupid soap opera junk. Weepy histrionics with a message of living life to its fullest but that doesn't itself enrich lives. A book about an obnoxious author who doesn't have anything substantial to offer. Veteran actors Laura Dern and Willem Dafoe are wasted.