Review: If I Stay

Photo courtesy of If I Stay official movie trailer

BY SARAH SHARPE

Straight off the heels of The Fault in Our Stars comes another movie based off a young adult novel about the value of life and how we decide to live it. Chloë Grace Moretz plays Mia Hall, a junior in high school who catches the eye of senior Adam Wilde (Jamie Blackley) one day as she’s playing her cello in the band room. Mia comes from a family of former rockers, but answered the calling of Beethoven and Mozart, while Adam comes from a broken home and found solace in good ol’ fashioned rock and roll. They form a strong connection through their mutual love of music and it seems like this could be both Mia and Adam’s happily ever after. On the day that she is supposed to be mailed her decision from Juilliard, however, Mia and her family get in a horrible car crash.

Mia is left in a comatose state and has the ultimate out-of-body experience, reminiscent of Patrick Swayze in Ghost. The decision is then put in her hands if she wants to continue living, be with Adam, and possibly go to Juilliard or end her life and join her family in heaven.

Photo courtesy of If I Stay official movie trailer.

Did the movie have me insanely sobbing as much as The Fault in Our Stars? No. Did I tear up a good amount of times? Oh, yes. The performances are very strong and the dilemma Mia is faced with is actually very plausible. There were two aspects of the film I definitely connected with, above all else. The intense adrenaline rush and euphoria one gets from performing and the draw one might feel towards giving up everything else to have that feeling forever is certainly relate-able in the field of theatre, as well as the doubts one might have about the extent of their talent. Both situations are portrayed extremely accurately here.

If I Stay also has a good amount of laughs, so if you’re not in the mood for a downer, don’t totally cross this movie off your list. There is, however, one thing I didn’t like about this movie and that is if you came out of Breaking Dawn: Part 1 with a strange feeling of awkward abruptness, I can’t guarantee anything different here. If you do want to swoon over a very attractive leading man for an hour and forty-six minutes who’s actually doing his own singing, though, this movie is definitely worth seeing.