If I Stay (2014)

** ½ out of ****

This is a film that I had a really mixed reaction to – part of me really, really liked it and part of me did not. I think that the part of me that did is the part that recognizes that Chloe Grace Moretz is, at 17 years old, a superstar in the making with almost limitless potential as an actress. And I think the part that didn't is my recognition that this film tries to be a bonafide tear-jerker, but fails.

Moretz is Mia Hall, a high school student with an amazing talent and an almost equally amazing set of parents. Her father had been a pretty big local star on the punk music scene, and Mia and her brother grew up listening to the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and Sonic Youth. But where her mother and little brother love punk, Mia somehow found her way to classical music, and at a young age all she wanted to do was play scales on the cello. Her dad, seeing what she could become, quit his band and sold his guitar to be able to buy her a cello of her own.

Told mostly in flashbacks, we see that Mia thinks of herself as a nerd and she is stunned when the lead singer of a local band (played by Jamie Blackley) appears to take a romantic interest in her. Her life has the typical ups and downs of a high schooler.... love, arguments, angst about what she should do with her life. But her talent for the cello, which leads her to apply for Julliard, and the talent of her boyfriend (becoming a bigger and bigger rock star) tears her in two directions and causes her the most conflict. And when she and her family are involved in a car crash, the movie earns its title.

Her parents are killed immediately in the accident. Her little brother dies shortly after. Mia is in a coma..... but is also awake and witness to everything, walking around the hospital like a teenage apparition. The supernatural flavour of the film is that she sees what has happened to her and she is basically given the choice to live or die. Life is hard, she's a teen (when it always seems way harder than it actually is), and her family is gone. It seems like to die will take her to heaven (we see the white light and everything), and much of the movie is spent with her decision over what to do.

Moretz is terrific in “If I Stay” - I think this kid is going to win several Oscars in her life, and it won't be long before the first one comes.  She's that good. The supporting actors are serviceable, if not excellent, with one exception: Stacy Keach as her grandfather. I have never been a fan of Keach, but he does a couple of incredible things in this movie, particularly a scene where he sits at his granddaughter's bedside and talks to her comatose body. I was actually shaking my head a this scene – Keach is so friggin' good in it that I was astounded and deeply moved.

But the movie, for what it is obviously trying to be, fails. Some movies have the ability to make you cry whether you want to or not. “Life is Beautiful”, “Marley and Me”, even more recent films like “The Fault in Our Stars” and “About Time”.... they knew how to manipulate your emotions and turn you into a blubbering idiot, even if the movies themselves weren't always great. “If I Stay” tries very hard to twist you up this same way, but other than Keach's fine performance at Mia's bedside, it just doesn't have any real emotional punch. It knows what it wants to be, but falls short.

That's the reason for the mixed review. I enjoyed the movie and loved Chloe Grace Moretz in it, and it has some moments that are really great (not the least of which is Mia's audition for Julliard – wow!). But since it wants to be a tear-jerker and fails, it leaves you feeling like it was an underachievement.