Music And Melodrama Dominates This Young Adult Romance Film

Rating: 8/10 (10 March 2015)

If I Stay features movie star on the rise,Chloe Grace Moretz and gives her all in this young adult romantic film that tells the story of Mia,who is faced with the decision whether to live or to join her family,who all died in a car accident.In addition to that,there is a storyline involving her with regards to making a decision as to whether to pursue a musical career at Julliard or be with her love of her life,Adam portrayed by Jamie Blackley. This film directed by R.J. Cutler that has a supporting cast the includes Mireille Enos,Joshua Leonard,Aisha Hinds and veteran actor Stacy Keach is based on Gayle Foreman's novel of the same title is dominated by music and melodrama together with some elements of the supernatural wherein we see Mia in a spiritual existence as she sees the people who visits her while in coma fighting for her existence at the ICU.
It was evident that the movie is directed at a particular audience namely young adults.Too bad that people not within that age group would find the movie lacking authenticity,emotionally manipulative and a tearjerker that modern movies at present move away from.Somehow even mature young adults belonging in that particular group would somehow find it clichéd and predictable as well and would lack appreciation for it.Aside from that,the love story involving Mia and Adam is far from believable as well considering that both barely have similar traits and characteristics.Even the type of music that they play are different from each other with one being classical music and the other being rock music.It just manages to put the familiar young adult romantic relationship that people of different characteristics can pull through a successful relationship.But overall,it just provides the viewer some confusion on their attraction to one another despite their lack of similarities character-wise.
The performances in the film is satisfactory overall.But Chloe Grace Moretz was definitely far from satisfactory.It was outstanding as she was able to make the viewer empathize with her character as Mia with the many events of her life from falling in love with Adam;the pressure she felt during her audition at Julliard;the life-changing decisions she was about to make from either joining her parents and young brother who all failed to survive the car accident or joining her boyfriend by continuing her existence; and her maturity from being a young girl into a young adult the moment she entered into a relationship with Adam.Despite the emotional manipulation and melodramatic elements of the storyline involving her character, Moretz somehow minimized them through her performance as Mia including her indecision in either staying in existence or dying at deathbed to join her family who just passed away that somehow slowed the story down somehow and provided it some seemingly boring moments. In the end, one could see the potential she has and a great future that she possess as an actress in the years to come.In summary, Moretz's portrayal of Annie alone was able to lift this young adult romance film higher than just an average rating.