Film Critique/ Analysis #5
Michael Atkinson
Cinema 28
Another Teen Flick
In another teen romance film, If I Stay (2014) directed by R.J. Cutler and Linda Cohen, tells the story of a seventeen year old girl who is stuck somewhere between life and death. After a tragic car accident that kills her family, Mia lies in a coma. But the story is told as Mia walks around watching herself and her family, not yet dead. Her family and friends can neither hear nor see Mia and as the story progresses, Mia’s condition worsens forcing her to make the choice: does she go with her family in death or does she stay here on earth?
This is the entire movie in its entirely. The rest of the film is made up of flashbacks that tell Mia’s life leading up to the car accident. We learn of her romance with a boy, her skill for the cello, her eccentric family, and her acceptance to Juilliard. But often during these flashbacks that seem to be endless, one is constantly wondering: What is happening to Mia? Our minds are stuck in the period of time currently, knowing that Mia is comatose with her condition worsening and wondering what she will chose and what will happen to her next. Yes, the flashbacks provide the light that makes one care about Mia and understand what is at stake for her, yet the flashbacks constantly bore you because you want to go back to what is happening now.
Chloe Grace Moretz is the actress who plays the seventeen year old main character and she lightens up the screen with her realistic performance - well as realistic as you can get with a person in limbo. She truly makes one feel the eerie chill of goosebumps when Mia finds out of her family’s death. She falls to the floor clutching her chest and heaving as if she really can’t breathe. This performance is enough to make your blood run cold no matter who you are or how tough you are.
But sadly, goosebumps were all I received from this film. I was told going into it that I would need plenty of tissues but there just wasn’t enough substance or enough on the line here to really move me to tears. However, if I was a twelve year old girl - those who this film was aimed towards - perhaps I would’ve cried. It seems Hollywood loves producing these sappy teen romance stories one after the other, giving these young girls a hopeful outlook to men, thinking their life might come with a real hero as many other teen films do such as The Fault in Our Stars, Divergent, The Hunger Games and so on. In the end, I feel that there may some very disappointed teens when they finally grow up.
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