Stronger drama aspect for the teen/young adults

Rating: 7/10 (9 September 2014)

The movie tells about a young girl Mia Hall. The movie goes alternating back and forth between the stories of her past and the present story of her family's car accident. The past stories elaborate on her relationship with Adam; how they first met, going through differences between them, break ups and reconciliations, and the conflict between them when Mia chose to go to Julliard while Adam decides to continue on with his band. The present story is a day when Mia is waiting for a response letter after her admittance audition on a snowy day. Her parents notice her anxiety and ask her to go on a ride. The innocent joy ride turns out to be a disaster when a car from the opposite direction swerves and ran straight head on to the family's car. Mia wakes up on the side of the road as the paramedics tend to her family andher.
Being out of her body and having no one responding to her, she stayed with her body to the hospital. There she soon learns that her parents are killed instantly and that her brother survives the crash but is sustaining heavy injuries. She also learns that being conscious outside of her body and hanging on a thread between life and death, she has to make the decision whether to keep on fighting to go back to her body and continue on with her changed life, or to just let go. Through some flash backs of her own as she sees many people close to her come and visit her at the hospital, and ultimately seeing Adam relenting and deciding to go with her to New York after he tells her that she got into Julliard, Mia finally sees the white light and returns to her body and wakes up.
Being based on a teen/young adult novel, the movie is bold enough to introduce a newer kind of story flow style, the alternating back and forth style, to the teen and young adult audience. I said so because movies aimed especially at this market, particularly in recent years' releases, have never used such a style. This is good because it kind of demands the viewers to be more intellectual in enjoying how the story is being told. This movie opens kind of slowly before the main conflict settles in. But it already started with the back and forth style even before the main conflict takes place.
Like all recent teen/young adult movie, the ingredient mix of a teen couple romance and some degree of fantasy works well for the story. Unlike the others of its kind, the drama side is very strong in this movie. The fantasy side seems like it's only there to give this story some depth to it. For me that's quite good so that the current teen generation that's been growing up with all the Harry Potters and Twilights and even Hunger Games can learn to appreciate the drama side of a story.
Chloe-Grace Moretz' acting quality sure does increases since the last I saw her in Kick-Ass 2. She can really handle the close up scenes nicely, depicting the right facial expressions. Jamie Blackley provided the nice balance for the story, although he doesn't quite really balance Moretz' performance. It's quite funny to see Mireille Enos as a good mother here after the last time I saw her in Sabotage.
A 7 out of 10 score is from me without hesitation for If I Stay (2014). It's a good drama entertainment and a teen movie altogether. A recommendation is a sure nod from me.