THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (Rated PG-13)

John Green’s best-selling YA novel “The Fault in Our Stars” has been adapted into a major motion picture of the same title.

For those, like me, too far removed from the demographic, the acronym “YA” stands for “young adult,” which has spawned a literary genre increasingly making its presence felt big time in popular films.

Fittingly, “The Fault in Our Stars,” directed by Josh Boone, stars Shailene Woodley, one of the very best young actresses on the scene today and still capable of pulling off the role of a teenage girl enduring serious challenges.

The story is about teenagers with cancer, focusing on two central characters developing a bond of friendship in a support group which leads to a touching romance that results in a celebration of life even though longevity is fated to be short-lived.

“The Fault in Our Stars” is a love story about two kids with cancer, but it’s not about cancer. The disease may hang like a dark cloud over the young people, but the two main characters, once they bond and fall for each other, rejoice in life’s possibilities.

The story does not begin so wonderfully for Woodley’s Hazel Grace Lancaster, whose childhood cancer affects her lungs to the extent that her life depends on being hooked up to breathing tubes connected to an oxygen tank that she must wheel around as a constant companion.

Looked after by loving, doting parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell), Hazel leads a mostly lonely existence without any real friends, an unfortunate situation that worries her counselor.

Mostly, Hazel, a survivor but nonetheless withdrawn, spends time re-reading her favorite cancer-related novel “An Imperial Affliction.”

Encouraged to join a support group for kids with cancer, Hazel is reluctant to attend. But this is where she meets Augustus “Gus” Waters (Ansel Elgort), a charming, witty, charismatic young man who was once a star athlete until she lost his leg to cancer.

Gregarious and personable by nature, Gus is soon smitten with Hazel, who often prefers to call her Hazel Grace, seemingly making a personal connection to this lovely young girl and setting himself apart from all others who would otherwise overlook Hazel’s middle name.

An unlikely member of a support group, Gus is there mainly to help his best friend Isaac (Nat Wolff), a natural jokester whose unfortunate medical condition will soon result in total blindness.

Though a charm offensive has to be launched through witty texts and sarcastic banter, Gus wows the shy Hazel into a tentative relationship that he almost blows when he pulls out a cigarette and places it nonchalantly between his lips.

Aghast at his insensitive display, Hazel is nearly repulsed until Gus explains that the cigarette is a metaphor. He never lights the cigarette because he wants to demonstrate that it has no power over him.

The film has plenty of metaphors. Even a visit to the house of Anne Frank in Amsterdam is a metaphor. The interest in the author Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe), who resides in Holland and wrote Hazel’s favorite novel, may also be a metaphor.

Obsessed with the novel “An Imperial Affliction,” a touchstone for those fighting cancer, Hazel tries desperately to connect with the reclusive author in search of questions left unanswered by the book.

Gus manages to reach Van Houten through the author’s assistant, and it results astonishingly in an invitation to meet the writer in Amsterdam. Of course, there are financial and medical hurdles to clear before taking a European vacation.

As fate would have it, good things fall into place and the two teenagers, accompanied by Hazel’s mother, head over to Holland for an unexpected adventure, including a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant apparently arranged by the author.

Meeting Van Houten, though, is an entirely different story. The enigmatic author is like the Wizard of Oz. The teens expect to meet someone to give them answers, but instead discover a person who is scary, intimidating and not at all friendly or welcoming.

Whether “The Fault in Our Stars” is faithful to the source material of the book is an unanswered question that I leave to others familiar with the work of John Green to decide. Yet, the film succeeds to deliver a touching story that is lifted by a healthy dose of wit and humor.

What the film argues persuasively is that the answers Hazel craves don’t from a book or its cranky author. They come from living a great adventure that Hazel shares with someone she is not afraid to love, who has given them both what she calls “a little infinity – a forever within the numbered days.”

Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort have great chemistry as the romantic couple facing an uncertain future. They share great moments, alternately tender and funny, and always touching.

The audience will be touched as well, and as a result, tears and misty eyes are practically inevitable.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.