Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, Jamie Blackley, Joshua Leonard, and Stacy Keach, "If I Stay" is an emotional, romantic, and melodious film that shouldn't disappoint younger female audiences. Based on the novel by Gayle Forman, this mix of vulnerability, dramatic tragedy, passion, and fantasy is designed to pull at your heartstrings and will undoubtedly bring some viewers and book fans to tears. At the same time, other audiences - specifically males - may not appreciate certain elements of the movie, including its corniness, sappiness, overdone dialogue, and more.
"If I Stay" tells the story of Mia Hall (Moretz), a smart, musically-talented, innocent girl whose life completely changes after she starts dating her first serious high school boyfriend and her family experiences a terrible accident. The accident leaves Mia in the hospital in a temporary dream-like state, where she has a sort of out-of-body experience and must decide whether to "stay" to continue on with her life, or to move on and die.
Mia has a lot going for her before the accident, including an audition with The Juilliard School, a bright future, and a seemingly-loving boyfriend. Naturally, she doesn't want to leave her boyfriend, her life, and others she loves behind, but with so much changing following the accident, she's not sure if she even wants to wake up and return to a life that will be completely different for her.
When Mia finds herself in limbo of sorts between life and death, she begins to have flashbacks of her family, friends, and most of all, her boyfriend. Much of this presentation plays out like a series of flashbacks or out-of-order events, as Mia must weigh her life, current situation, and possible future to decide whether to stay or go. The movie uses metaphors, comparisons, and parallels related to music, love, life, and more as Mia reflects on her past and puts her life in perspective. The film makes good use of multiple musical elements, a great deal of time jumps, and low-to-moderate humor.
While a beautiful and magical film for certain audiences, it will be unwatchable for others. For multiple reasons, the text or dialogue from the book doesn't seem to adapt very well into believable or bearable conversations and language for these characters. Similar to other young love stories, the love is very new, passionate, and extreme and has its vast ups and downs. At times, the stale, unoriginal dialogue is tremendously cheesy, corny, too lovey dovey or over the top, and the film features a consierable amount of heavy content related to love, life death, etc. Some of this material can be very emotional, saddening, and upsetting to viewers. I'm usually a big supporter, but naturally, some people just don't like this kind of deep content.
"If I Stay" misses on a few opportunities, doesn't take full advantage of its potential, and other than Mia's life/death scenario, doesn't portray many surprises or anything exceptionally special. That being said, it effectively delivers for most young, female audiences, and will hopefully not disappoint fans of the book and the YA fantasy-romance genre. Although it exhibits a variety of similarities to this genre and could be considered as science fiction, this film focuses more on the love story, emotions, life and death of the main characters. With few quality options at the box office this time of year, there are worse films you could be seeing.
Rated 2 out of 5 stars.
"If I Stay" is rated PG-13 for thematic elements and some sexual material. Running time is 1 hour and 47 minutes. This film was released in theaters on Aug. 22.
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Hayden Pittman is a special contributor to WFAA.com and a freelance film critic and entertainment blogger out of Dallas. More of his content can be found on YouPlusDallas.com and his author archive here. He is a film, TV, and sports enthusiast, and when not writing reviews or covering an event, he works in film production. As an average, passionate film lover who rarely misses a film, his reviews are straightforward and his way with words will let you know in a simple way what he thinks. Don't like what he has to say? Let him know at haydenp@youplusmedia.com or follow him on Twitter at @HPMoviePitt.
