Thursday night I drove to the Coastal Grand Mall’s Cinemark Theater where I met Sidney and her friends Kendra and Josh (married to each other) for the 11 p.m. showing of “The Fault in Our Stars.” I had never heard of the movie or the wildly popular book until Sidney started talking about it earlier this week. Coincidentally enough after she said something I talked to a few other people who mentioned it as well. The words “sad” and “love story” were spoken each time I engaged in these conversations.

On Thursday evening I saw “The Fault in Our Stars.”

So Thursday evening I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into when I walked inside the theater with my tub of popcorn and Pibb Xtra. I knew I was going to see two sick teenagers fall in love and I knew it would be emotional. However, I was not prepared for how gut-wrenching it would actually be.

I don’t want to get too descriptive with the plot because my main point of this post is just to issue a warning to anyone who doesn’t want to “pay money to cry” (a reference from one of my co-workers) but here is the background. A 17-year old guy and 16-year old girl meet at a cancer support group. The guy is presumably recovered while the girl is battling for her life. The two fall for each other and make it a mission to visit an author in Amsterdam. They realize their dream and visit their hero in that country but he is not what they thought. However the trip is not only a turning point in their relationship but it is also a major revelation as the boy tells the girl that his cancer has returned. The boy, who thought he was in the clear, ends up dying before the girl.

Terrible summary by me but hopefully you get the picture. Honestly though, all you really need to know about the movie is that it is SAD. Real sad. Hard to explain but the movie just hits you in so many ways. Throughout the whole thing you will find tears rolling down your cheek until it seems as if it all builds up into one final emotional earthquake towards the end of the movie when the boy does. Never before in a theater had I seen/heard the reaction that I did on Thursday night. The audience, which was probably 98% female, seemed to break out in a communal outpouring of sobs, gasps, cries, and nose blows. The misery in the theater was thick. It seemed as if everyone in the auditorium had actually lost someone very close to them right at that moment. I understood though because like I said, it hits you hard.

Like I said above, I had a tough time keeping it together myself. I felt incredibly thankful that the darkness of the theater could at least mask my pathetic state a little bit. Usually people say you need to see a movie in the theater if it has a lot of special effects or beautiful imagery/scenery but even though this movie lacks both of those things you still need to see it in the theater to protect yourself from looking like a mess in your living room around your girlfriend or family.

I enjoyed watching “The Fault in Our Stars” because it did touch me and brought out a lot of emotion as well. Not too many movies can do that to me so I have to tip my hat and say well done. If you want to see a wonderfully pure love story and don’t mind crying, I recommend “The Fault in Our Stars.” Just remember to bring along extra tissues. Don’t Blink.