I didn’t cry during If I Stay, which means I must be a monster. Everyone else around fellow PDC-er Mae and I was sniffling and openly sobbing, so are we soulless? Heartless? Or perhaps it’s just that the film, despite strong characters and relationships, does the “sad dying teenager” thing too familiarly. I saw The Fault In Our Stars already this summer; my tears were spent on that.
Nevertheless, If I Stay will affect you, thanks to a well-rounded cast that embodies their characters fully. There’s Moretz, who so infrequently has played a regular teenager that it’s impressive that she can; here, she’s a good mix of self-assured but doubtful, confident but meek, as 17-year-old cello player Mia Hall. Her character grows more ambitious and collected as the film progresses, and Moretz embodies a kind of vulnerability that eventually bursts into steeliness. It’s the nature of the film that Mia is indecisive, though, so Moretz is in a holding pattern for a good deal of time. For such a dynamic actress, that’s disappointing, but it helps that she’s surrounded by other great performers, namely Jamie Blackley, Mireille Enos, and Stacy Keach. They all do their part to keep the ensemble successful.
The film focuses on Mia (Moretz), a high school senior waiting to learn if she is going to attend Juilliard, across the country in New York City, or if she is going to stay in Seattle and attend college with her boyfriend, local rocker Alex (Blackley). But one morning, a devastating car crash plunges Mia into a coma, and she wakes up separated from her body, able to move around in ghost-like fashion. Her family members are horrendously injured, and she can see her other relatives and friends waiting in the hospital for news about their condition. So the film divides its time between these present-day scenes and flashbacks of Mia’s life, particularly her relationships with her parents and Adam, her first love.
Should Mia stay or should she die? The decision is up to her, and the flashbacks are meant to be a guiding force in her choice. So we’re taken through her childhood with her parents: father Dennis (Joshua Leonard), who left his gig playing drums in a moderately famous punk band behind to raise his children, and mother Kat (Enos), a matter-of-fact former riot grrl whose closet is “terrifying” to Mia but who has devoted all of herself to her children. There is also younger brother Teddy (Jakob Davies), who loves the music favored by his parents; as a unit, they’re all different than Mia, who prefers classical music and playing the cello. Sometimes Mia even wonders if Dennis and Kat are her parents – how can they be so different?
But there is something tying the family together, some kind of love and affection and ambition, and that draws in Alex (Blackley), the older frontman of a local rock band that is growing in popularity. Mia is quiet and doesn’t fit into his crowd, but he doesn’t care; her passion and her dedication are enthralling. And in the same way, Mia is entranced by Alex’s charisma and his originality, and they fall in love. But each of them has specific career goals, and those paths may take them away from each other as Alex hits the road and Mia considers Juilliard. Can their love survive? And is it enough to keep Mia alive?
Director R.J. Cutler jumps back and forth in the narrative, switching from flashbacks to present day, and that might be the most frustrating part of the film. Instead of streamlining the plot, it makes it somewhat tedious, especially as Mia and Alex get together and then break up and then get back together and then break up. That’s an honest assessment of teenage first love, of course – it certainly jibed with my own experiences, at least – but at times the film jumps from present day, to a breakup scene, then jumps back to present day, then to a makeup scene. It falls into an expected pattern, and eventually that structure drags.
Moretz and Blackley are great, though, and as much as their relationship feels repetitive, they have undeniable chemistry. The film suffers in the beginning from the “why me?” syndrome of female teenage protagonists (literally, Mia asks Alex why he would love her, which is eyerollingly frustrating), but they’re worthy of each other, especially as Mia’s confidence grows. A major scene-stealer is Enos, though, who inhabits the “cool wise mom” role fully. Whether encouraging Mia to be more outgoing or helping her dress up like Debbie Harry for Halloween, she’s a grounded source of advice, and she increases the realistic feel of the film.
Because too often, Cutler veers into “look how hip we are!” territory, working in songs by the Smashing Pumpkins and lines from S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” to show off how cool and alternative If I Stayis. Those moments are mostly scoff-worthy, because If I Stay is the best when it focuses on its characters and relationships. Everything else is somewhat extraneous.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Guttenbergs
Posts
