Yesterday, at my suggestion, the Wilcox couple watched If I Stay, which I grabbed from iTunes. The movie is much better than expected, and, reading professional reviews later on, grossly underrated by the critics. First-time fictional director R.J. Cutler delivers a poignant, if at times disjointed, coming-of-age drama.
The tonal quality reminds of two other family-centrics films fitting the genre: The Lovely Bones, directed by Peter Jackson, and Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty. All three focus on a teen in transition, where the family dynamics are canvas for a larger love story. The Cutler and Jackson films bring tears, while Lumet might just make a liberal, or perhaps radical, out of you. 🙂
The families are by no means tight and tidy, at least from the protagonists’ perspectives, but moving nevertheless. Each film depicts the young adult’s process of separation from the family, while searching for identity, and grappling with the first love relationship.
I am not the target audience for If I Stay, or presumably. The film is based on a popular YA (young-adult) novel by Gayle Forman. I will next read the book, for which I most certainly am not the intended readership. Yeah. Yeah. According to an author Q&A on the book’s website:
Q: This book explores some serious themes. Why is this a book for kids and not adults?
A: It’s a book for kids precisely because it explores serious themes. Teenagers are grappling with choices about life and love as much as adults, so why shouldn’t their reading reflect that? I don’t set out to write YA. It just seems like I’m drawn to stories about young people. That said, I think If I Stay is for adults, too. I love the idea of teens reading this book and then handing it off to their parents.
I hand it off to myself, thank-you very much.
Good storytelling is ageless, something success of the Harry Potter and The Hunger Games series demonstrates. I look forward to see how If I Stay the book compares.
If you’re looking for a story synopsis, and have read this far, my apologies for disappointing you. There are no spoilers here. See the film. You may find it more endearing than the professional critics. The only opinion that matters is yours.