Shailene Woodley and Josh Boone talk about The Fault in Our Stars

Director Josh Boone and stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort talk about their teen tear-jerker The Fault in Our Stars.

Ansel Elgort, left, and Shailene Woodley in a scene from The Fault In Our Stars. 20th Century Fox, James Bridges / AP Photo

In a summer of blockbusters with superheroes, a rampaging monster and a wicked fairy, The Fault in Our Stars, the film adaptation of John Green's eponymous bestseller, is a heart-wrenching story of young love that is already a box-office hit in the United States.

The 36-year-old Green’s 2012 young-adult novel has sold 11 million copies worldwide, providing a built-in fan base for the film which opens today in UAE cinemas.

The Fault in Our Stars – the title comes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar – features Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, who last appeared together in the dystopian thriller Divergent.

“It celebrates life and is incredibly hopeful,” says Woodley, 22. “It is about falling in love for the first time and the beauty of being in love, and all the trials and tribulations and glory that come from that.”

Woodley and Elgort play smart, witty teenagers who begin a romance after meeting at a cancer support group.

“I fell in love with the story and the relationship between Augustus and Hazel,” says Woodley, who wears a nasal cannula and wheels around a portable oxygen tank throughout the film. “I also loved that, at the age of 16, Hazel understood that you don’t need to live a long life to lead a meaningful life.”

Hazel and Augustus, who lost a leg to the disease, are fun-loving and never let their illness define them. Although cancer is the backdrop, Elgort said, it is not the focus of the story.

“What it does do is put a clock on things, which makes things interesting because I think it allows both characters to live in the moment,” the 20-year-old actor ­explains.

Laura Dern (Jurassic Park) plays Hazel's protective mother, Frannie. Nat Wolff (The Naked Brothers Band) is the couple's friend, and Willem Dafoe (The Grand Budapest Hotel) is the elusive Peter Van Houten, the author of Hazel's favourite novel.

Perplexed by the book’s unsatisfactory ending, Hazel and Augustus travel to ­Amsterdam to meet Van Houten and learn the fate of the book’s characters.

For the director Josh Boone, the film was always about two young people in love.

“To me it just seems like I hadn’t seen a movie like this before, done this way, with characters such as this, with a love story like this. I just thought it was a fascinating backdrop to talk about illness and death and life and family,” he said.