Rom-Dram anyone?
There’s plenty of romance and tons of drama in If I Stay, the sappy and dramatic love story about a rebel rocking popular guy who (of course) falls for the not so rocking, but cello playing and YoYo Ma loving odd girl out.

It’s the usual mix of “opposites attract” story featuring people so good-looking they literally glow (Jamie Blackley I mean you). The only thing that redeems the movie from being a complete yawn is the unusual storyline.

Cue the lights on cello prodigy Mia Hall (Chloe Grace Moretz) the movie’s protagonist, who falls in love with older boy Adam (Blackley). Their young love goes through the mess of life, which is “a part of life”, (just along the lines of one of the sappy lines that gets repeated quite frequently) and the movie focuses on the one life altering problem that occurred: the car accident.

Maybe 20 minutes in and Mia is critically injured and looking at her own life through an out of body experience faced with a challenge awaiting an answer: should she stay or should she go?

Waiting for her on earth is Adam, her best friend, grandparents, Julliard…but on the other side beyond the white light that keeps flashing into view is her parents and brother. In one instant she became an only child and orphan.

It’s deep on the matter, but that’s about as far as it goes because of a few shortcomings.

Take the main relationship that’s dwelt on, of course, between Mia and Adam for example. They’re cute, not going to lie about that one. He accepts her for who she is although she isn’t a rocker, isn’t a partier and thoroughly enjoys Ludwig Beethoven.

But what else is there? Oh yeah, they both love music and that’s their real connection. It should be noted that he was watching her playing her cello through the window at school (It’s not that creepy) and they both “lose themselves in the music.”

There’s nothing wrong about that, but there is no real dimension for each character that adds something to the relationship. I might be asking too much from an obvious teen-girls-night-out, but come on.

Mia has a great family made up of a bunch of affectionate rockers and she feels alienated, but Adam loves her family and mentions, maybe twice, that his family life isn’t the best and his father walked out on him.

Thanks for the info Adam, now I understand completely why you flipped out when Mia and you were merging onto different paths. That was sarcasm if you didn’t catch it. Some things were slightly unexpected and head scratching worthy, including guitar boy’s mini tantrums.

But I can’t just make digs at Blackley’s character because Moretz gets slightly irritating as well. Poor Mia can become very indecisive and needy at times. But that could also be the reason she went through the whole accident and relationship thing.

In all honesty though, the movie wasn’t terrible. It was just okay.

What lifted its overall positive rating is the way they cut the story, showing what was happening in the present to Mia and her family after the accident while flashing back to memories of her relationship with Adam and everything that had happened until the fatal accident.

That was unique. I also can’t help but love the love story going on, no matter how one dimensional it was. I’m a teenage girl, sorry for being susceptible to #relationshipgoals. Who wouldn’t go to a movie where the trailers had a boy begging a girl to stay with her? It just happens.

The real problem though was that I didn’t cry. These types of movies are supposed to pull my heart strings and I guess I’m just disappointed that it only pulled a few. But then again A Walk to Remember didn’t make me shed a tear and I get choked up during Lion King and Monster’s Inc. every time I watch them. Oh well.

It wasn’t a waste of my time and I have no regrets that I spent 2 hours of my Labor Day watching it. But would I stay again for this movie? Well, I only have to think about it once to decide and that would be a drama free “no.”