If this had stayed any longer I don't know how I would have coped

Rating: 3/10 (14 February 2015)

In the latest Young Adult weepie adaptation to hit the screens, Chloe Grace Moretz plays a 17 year old musician who is left in a coma after a car crash that kills her family and she must choose between life and death. As this is a teen drama, of course there's also a love story. If I Stay is meant to be a tear jerker, but if certain scenes have you howling with laughter, there's definitely a problem. To be honest, this movie is one big problem. While fans of sappy love stories will be entertained and the film offers a couple of heart string tugging moments and some really cool parent characters, IIS is simply a terrible movie. Watch The Fault in Our Stars instead. I'm not the target audience, but I can enjoy this kind of film if it's done properly. This one is a soppy, underdone, manipulative mess which barely raises a sob. RJ Cutler, who makes his feature film directional debut, shows no personality or imagination behind the camera, and the film hops between flashbacks and Chloe wandering around the hospital in ghost form with the delicacy of a hyperactive frog.
Chloe Grace Moretz gives a weak performance as Mia. Having learnt nothing from Carrie, she tries again to play an outsider but it just doesn't work and sadly her role just feels wet. A terrible shame considering how good she normally is. Her love interest is played by a wooden newcomer who doesn't do anything particularly interesting with his character. The quality of a film hinges entirely on the script. Without a good script, any positives in a film are often for naught. IIS has a soppy screenplay where every scene exists for exposition or making people cry. It fails. The film is very boring, it sacrifices true depth for manipulation and the ending is frustrating and lazy to the point where comparisons with The Devil Inside would be justified. Phony and manipulative, IIS may not be as bad as Endless Love, but while that was just a tedious romance, this throws in loads of drama which could have been interesting but doesn't develop it. The romance itself is silly and unrealistic, the main character is ungrateful and only thinks of her ex boyfriend even though her family could be dead and it just makes you want to sleep. Hit Girl would be mortified.
3/10