3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.22.14
We certainly can’t imagine what
it would be like, for a soul stalled between life and death — the likely wealth
of conflicting emotions at play — but Chloë Grace Moretz makes a persuasive case.
 |
| In the aftermath of a horrific accident, Mia (Chloë Grace Moretz) gradually realizes that her soul remains in limbo, able to watch but not affect the efforts being made to save her comatose body, which hovers near death in a hospital bed. |
As the young star of director
R.J. Cutler’s adaptation of Gayle Forman’s enormously popular young adult
novel, Moretz is a memorably tragic heroine: engagingly shy and vulnerable,
winsomely sweet, undecided in the ways we all remember from our high school
years, and then forced to confront a horrific tragedy that, inexplicably,
places her in a position to make an almost impossible decision.
The question is the degree to
which we get involved with her unusual plight.
Forman’s book is yet another entry
in the currently popular sub-genre of “doomed youth” sagas, many recently
adapted to the big screen, several of them this year. The current leader of the
pack obviously is John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, but we also can point
to Tim Tharp’s The Spectacular Now, John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and several books by Nicholas Sparks, among others.
Although this trend seems
somewhat masochistic, I suppose enjoying a good cry is a lot healthier than
wallowing in a gory slasher flick.
The book has been carefully and
sensitively handled by scripter Shauna Cross, who came to our attention after
adapting her own novel Derby Girl into 2009’s under-appreciated roller-derby
drama, Whip It, which gave Ellen Page a similarly endearing character arc.
“If I Stay” has the added benefit of strong casting in all the supporting roles,
and I’m sure Cutler had a hand in that, given his position as one of the
executive producers of TV’s sharply assembled Nashville.
Moretz’s Mia Hall is a school
misfit: a quiet outcast who assigned herself that role, due to a (probably
justified) concern that her peers wouldn’t think much of a girl who prefers the
cello, Yo-Yo Ma and Beethoven to electric guitar and the gyrations of the
newest “it” band. Mia also is something of an anomaly at home: Her father,
Denny (Joshua Leonard), was the drummer in a punk band before becoming a
teacher; her mother, Kat (Mireille Enos), was the ultimate groupie-turned-wife,
who carted Mia to gigs as a toddler and reveres tough rock chicks like Deborah
Harry.
And Mia’s little brother, Teddy
(Jakob Davies), idolizes Iggy Pop.
Not that anybody in Mia’s family
makes her feel like an outsider. Denny and Kat are warm, supportive, tolerant
and wise ... frankly, the best parents anybody could imagine. But they don’t
look, feel or sound like impossibly ideal archetypes; armed with Cross’
note-perfect dialogue, and assisted by Cutler’s deft direction, Leonard and
Enos simply emerge as caring adults who relate to their daughter’s angst
because, well, they never quite abandoned their own anti-establishment younger
selves.
This story comes armed with
several moral imperatives, including this biggie: To thine own self be true.
Denny and Kat know this.
