If I Stay Review
RYAN: This is a new PG-13 romantic drama trying to capture the same audience as The Fault in Our Stars, but failing miserably. It stars Chloe Grace Moretz whom I love; but this movie is just good, not great. My 13 year old niece, Gaby, was so excited to see this movie so I brought her along to the press screening and to review. Why were you so excited to see this one?
GABY: The trailer made it look so good and when I first so it, it reminded me of The Fault in Our Stars, with the same sad theme. I loved that movie so I really wanted to see this one.
RYAN: Let’s start with the good: Chloe is such a versatile actress. She can play the sweet, innocent character like in this movie and she can also play the totally edgy, tough and sometimes even creepy characters like she did in the Kick-Ass movies and in Let Me In. I love her.
GABY: She was really good in this.
RYAN: You kinda look like her.
GABY: (laughs) Thank you! She was really good and I believed her as a ghost. I got into it and was holding back the tears.
RYAN: Were you? Did you cry? When?
GABY: Yeah there was a really touching scene between her and her grandpa and I cried a bit.
RYAN: That was sweet. This movie is told in a nonlinear fashion. It jumps back and forth between the present-post-car-accident-time and flashbacks of her family life and the guy she dates in high school. The relationship is decent and I liked those scenes better than the hospital scenes, but it all really stalls and becomes boring. There are a couple hints for time reference, like Halloween and New Year’s, but it really doesn’t give you the sense of how much time is passing. And the couples had the same fight twice – different circumstances but the same issue and it’s not good to feel deja vu in the middle of a movie – about the same movie!
GABY: I didn’t really notice that. I really liked it. I did get the connection between the insecurities of the boy Chloe’s dating in the movie and the whole car crash – it is kind of the same thing.
RYAN: Oh that’s very good – nice job picking up on that. Did you find it predictable?
GABY: Yeah.
RYAN: Did you find it more sad or uplifting?
GABY: It’s sad but I want there to be a sequel because it ends really suddenly. I want to know what happens next. There are a lot of things I’m wondering about what happened after the movie.
RYAN: The music was really bad. There are full performance scenes because her boyfriend is in a bad and their music was terrible. It really brought the whole quality of the film down. And they’re a successful band and I just never bought that. It would have been an easy way to improve the whole movie to make that music better. Like in Begin Again, recently, the music was good. Here it was cheesy and bad.
GABY: Yeah and the music all sounded the same. And Chloe plays a cellist and she kept playing the same song over and over again and I thought, “Oh this song again?” Then she plays another one that ends up being the same one.
RYAN: Some of the set design was also very odd. On the porch of their house there were random baby doll heads. Almost creepy. This is not a must see movie.
GABY: I’d say see it, but it’s more for girls and people who like emotional things. I think my friends would like it.
RYAN: I didn’t find it emotional at all. I didn’t connect for a second and I really wanted to.
