Not totally uninteresting, but for the most part If I Stay is far too slow and if you'll forgive the pun it's also somewhat lifeless

Rating: 5/10 (19 October 2015)

Mia Hall (Chloe Grace Moretz) is a promising young cellist whose biggest wish is to be accepted into Julliard which is an esteemed music school. She's also set to go on a date with rocker Adam on Friday night. However, she decides to go out for a drive to see relatives with her family and unfortunately their car collides with an oncoming vehicle. Mia ends up in a coma, but ends up experiencing some sort of afterlife and is in a position to see the aftermath of the accident which ultimately makes her re-examine her whole life where she realises that she has some tough choices to make.
Although If I Stay initially feels like it's ripping Ghost off I have to admit that this is a relatively interesting and involving film. The film essentially has two strands to its story; you have Mia's out of body or afterlife story arc where she is able to see how the accident affects both her and her friends and family. The second strand of the story is a little more interesting where we get to see what would have happened if Mia would have stayed and gone on her date with Adam rather than go out in the car with her family. Although it's interesting to start with I got the feeling that we have a film with 10-15 minutes worth of plot which was agonising drawn out to a 95 minute feature film. Many of the scenes in this film were repetitive (particularly the scenes in the hospital). As mentioned, the other arc to the story was slightly better, but this again felt like it was going round in circles. I also never really felt that there was much chemistry between Adam and Mia which again was something else that drew me slightly away from the film.
Shauna Cross' screenplay is a mixed bag and although there are some heartfelt and touching scenes for me the film also became a little irritating - things like Mia's afterlife moments where she keeps talking to people even though it's established very early on that they can't hear her. For me this became quite annoying and together with the tedious repetitive nature of the narrative it also made it a very long 95 minutes. The ending of the film is also a little cheesy.
I can't really fault the performances and I can see that If I Stay is a film that's full of good intentions as well as offering some interesting insights into the afterlife and life verses death, but the story is unbearably slow, repetitive and a little tedious at times. It's a shame because there was a lot of potential here, but sadly most of it is wasted.