If I stay

Seen at the Lara Cinema in Trabzon, Turkey

Bea says: This ended up being the best choice of a pretty average bunch of standard release movies for the one evening we had free in Trabzon, and we were delighted that our new found travelling friends Jem and Jane (blog link) decided to join us.

For me, If I Stay would have been a very good story and character led depiction of a quiet, focused, sensible teenager navigate the transitional choices of childhood into adulthood – should she reap the reward of her years of hard work on the cello by accepting a place at Julliard rather than moving in with her local boyfriend and attending a local college etc etc.  Primarily but not exclusively told from the perspective of Mia, the teenager, the film does manage to capture her voice and did take me back to that time of my life very successfully actually, when I too was a quiet, focused, sensible young woman with a local boyfriend and decisions to make.  However this aspect of the story only takes up about half of the film narrative.

What didn’t work for me was the other half, which felt a bit like the writer/producers panicked a bit at some point and thought not enough was happening so added loads more narrative to the script.

 Mia‘s “rocker” parents, who can’t quite believe they have created this cuckoo in the nest, were poorly developed – particularly the mother role (name actress playing) – and just too stereotypical for words.  Their characterisation, and the plot in general, suffered from the entire selling premise of the film - that the whole family are in a (spoiler alert) fatal car accident after deciding to go for a drive on a snow day (er – who does that?), and only Mia is left and must decide whether to stay (ie on Earth, alive) or go.

Cue moving bedside scenes with best friend (actually by far the better actress and a shame she didn’t play the lead role), boyfriend and grandfather.  There is a place for a good weepy, but I just got annoyed that this was distracting us from the much more interesting life choices (not just whether to stay or go) that Mia was having to make, and which were kind of just resolved or forgotten when the stay or go decision had to be made.  Sure, this happens sometimes in people’s lives.  But much, much more often people’ lives are set out and defined for many years due to decisions they take as young people – and isn’t that a far more interesting story to tell, really?

Felt like two separate films merged together, rather unsuccessfully for me.

**1/2

Cecil says: I didn’t relate to any of the characters in the way Bea did (even though I was a shy, sensible teenager, I never actually had any major life decisions to make in those years). But I did enjoy this film. Maybe because it was a relief to relax and listen to English after a week or more in a foreign land; maybe it was just nice to let the story flow over me, regardless of whether she stayed or went?

Funnily enough, the parallel narrative that annoyed Bea – the accident and its aftermath – felt the most significant to me, but that’s probably because I only recently had a car accident of my own and know only too well how close it was to a stay or go moment if things had been a split second different. That doesn’t make this a better film or storyline, but it meant I did connect to that aspect of the plot.

Part of the fun of watching films in foreign countries is to people watch and to pick up difference in the cinema-going experience. In Turkey, like in Switzerland, films are clearly cut at a half way point for an interval, though in this case it seemed a totally random point, in the middle of some scene or dialogue. The lights suddenly came on and the film stopped; for a second we all thought the projector had broken. But no, people were off to buy drinks, have a chat, check phones (though most people were doing that throughout the film anyway).

And then without any warning it was back on again. I guess Turks must know how long to take for their loo breaks…

So, yes I did enjoy this film more than Bea. The outcome doesn’t matter really, though our friends thought it was very obviously where the film was heading.

For a weekend movie in your home town or thousands of miles away, I’d say go for it. But don’t expect any Oscars

***