Cheesy barely begins to describe this maudlin tearjerker, adapted from a young-adult novel, about a 17-year-old girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) who suffers a nasty car accident, slips into a coma, and has an out-of-body experience. Her parents and younger brother have died in the crash, so she has to decide whether she wants to move on to the next life with them or stay on earth with her on-again, off-again rocker boyfriend (Jamie Blackley). In the fashion of melodrama, every moment is impossibly huge, and the movie is occasionally compelling in its brazen lack of subtlety. There are even shades of Bergman in the existential premise, but director J.R. Cutler is more interested in the young leads’ cookie-cutter romance, and the clunky nonlinear plot precludes any sort of comprehensive narrative. With Joshua Leonard and Mireille Enos.
If I Stay
PG-13 • 1 hour 47 min • 2014
