If I Stay ★★★

If I Stay is based on the book by Gayle Forman. The movie does a pretty good job of following the book with only a few differences that might annoy you, but if you're just watching the movie, it's a great movie.

Chloe Grace Moretz as Mia Hall

The movie featured Chloe Grace Moretz who did a fabulous job portraying Mia Hall in all her experiences: her love sickness over Adam Wilde, her devastation about the wreck, and her hopelessness when she finds out her little brother has died.

Chloe has been featured in Hugo as Isabelle and Kick Ass as  Mindy Macready a.k.a. Hit-Girl.

Chloe Grace Moretz

All of the characters were portrayed beautifully and added to the dynamics of the movie, but I think the best scenes were the more intimate and personal ones. Such scenes did well to develop the characters and add to the intensity of the movie.

As someone who read the book first and has owned it since like 2008, there were a few scenes that annoyed me.

For one, her father is supposed to be announced dead on site but in the movie he is rushed to the hospital. I feel like by having Mia discover that her father had died on the operating table, it makes Mia's story seem that much more tragic, which it didn't need.

Secondly, they cut out the few scenes that were rather funny, like when Adam tries to break into the ICU. In the book he has Brooke Vega, a superstar, help stir up attention so that he can sneak past. This doesn't happen in the movie.

Thirdly, I felt like some of the characters, such as Kim, could have been developed a lot more. There's a part in the book where the reader gets to see a different side of her, where she goes to the hospital's synagogue and prays for Mia. 

Mia Hall and Adam Wilde

I do however, love the connection that Mia and Adam create on screen. It's the kind of love story a lot of girls fantasize about, the cute and sensitive rocker boy falling for the quiet classical cellist. Well maybe not exactly that, but along the same lines.

Overall it was a great movie, but I feel like they tried to make Mia's story so much more tragic than it already is and it lacks the humor that came with the book. I loved how the book could make me laugh and cry all in one chapter, but the movie just left me in tears.

So if you haven't read the book, then this is a wonderful movie and I would recommend it, and even if you have read the book, I would still recommend it. The plot shows how in a split second, everything can change and it teaches you to see what you have to live for, not what you've lost. It shows how hard it can be to make decisions: whether to pursue your dream or the love of your life, whether to stay or leave, whether to live or die. Though sometimes we make decisions, and other times, decisions make us.