‘If I Stay’ Can’t Rinse its Too-Sudsy Soap Opera

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Average: 5 (1 vote)
HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 2.5/5.0
Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – We hate it when they grow up. Chloë Grace Moretz, a former child actor, takes on a first-teen-love role, and the results are decidedly mixed. The extreme emotions, the circumstances and Ms. Moretz’s performance undermine the soapy “If I Stay.”

The film is told in episodic flashback, after a car accident renders the character of Moretz as a ghost-like presence over her own coma recovery. Based on a popular young adult novel, the plot is straight out of a soap opera, and the squishy narrative doesn’t help matters. The film seeks to be different, by having the main character’s parents as former rock and rollers, and it sprinkles in a few swear words, but overall the tart points can’t affect the glacial pacing – this film moved so slow it almost reversed time – and the dull approach that Moretz applies to her character felt as if she was uncomfortable in the role.

Mia (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a budding cello musician and adolescent dream queen. She lives gracefully with her brother and former rocker parents Kat and Denny (Mirelle Enos and Joshua Leonard). Her biggest concerns are the letter that hasn’t arrived yet, telling her that she has got into the prestigious Julliard School of Music, and that her boyfriend Adam (Jamie Blackley) has become a successful rocker himself and has less time for her.

Chloë Grace Moretz, Jamie Blackley
Titanic Foreshadowing: Mia (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Adam (Jamie Blackley) in ‘If I Stay’
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

The family enjoys a snow day and decides to take a ride to visit relatives. While on that path, their car spins out and flips over. Mia is suddenly out of her body, observing the situation while living it in a coma. She uses the time to reflect on her life so far, while trying to comfort her relatives from her astral plane, including her grandfather (Stacy Keach). She has to decide whether to fight for life, or give in to the bright illumination she keeps seeing.

Adolescent girls dying before getting a chance to live is primetime for a mix of too-young memories, dreamy interpretations of first love and dramatic confrontations with important family members. This film has it all, but somehow is not anchored by Moretz’s performance. Her Mia is as disconnected as her symbolic ghost, and she has little chemistry with her rocker boyfriend. Given their last awkward meeting, for example, it doesn’t seem to make sense that he would rush to her bedside after the accident. The adapted screenplay by Shauna Cross – from the popular novel by Gayle Forman – imbues too much maturity on the teenagers, and some of their motivations come off as false.

The pacing of the film is near death as well. While there is an appreciation for director R.J. Cutler’s use of technique in flashback and memories – with dream-like states being appropriately visual – the overall story lacks energy, and moves at some points like a snail with a twisted ankle. The story needed some tightening, or a different lead actress that could handle the slower pace.

The film also seems a bit self-conscious about its different style of teen family, and more frank dialogue. The ex-rocker parents are pretty cool, and play it that way, but they also are as nerd-oriented as Mike and Carol Brady. If the author wanted to spice her young adult fantasies with more “realness,” then there should have been more vulnerability in those past lifestyles, that emerges in their current parenting. Instead, they are as warm as nacho cheese, and the mother reveals her credibility by wanting Mia to stay out past her curfew. Rawk!

Chloë Grace Moretz, Mirelle Enos, Joshua Leonard
Mia and Her Parents (Mirelle Enos and Joshua Leonard) in ‘If I Stay’
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

There are some appreciative touches that makes the film rise a little. The grit that they could do with a PG-13 rating included swearing (with many variations of the word bullsh*t, by both teens and parents), teen drinking (although how Adam got a shot served to him at a bar remains a mystery) and first time rolls in the hay (Moretz gets her first opportunity as an actress to practice the sheet technique that perfectly covers her naughty bits). I expected Mother Kat to be at the “first time” with some sort of rocker chic ceremony, but the story gratefully resisted the temptation.

I’m sure fans of the novel will be pining to experience the film version, but be forewarned that there is a bunch of slogging to do within the pacing. The first rule of being in the astral plane in this film should have been, let’s not flashback while being in the astral plane.

”If I Stay” opens everywhere on August 22nd. Featuring Chloë Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, Jamie Blackley, Joshua Leonard and Stacy Keach. Screenplay adapted by Shauna Cross, from the novel by Gayle Forman. Directed by R.J. Cutler. Rated “PG-13”

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2014 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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