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If I Stay

Manipulative, banal and relentlessly drippy

A teenage girl’s family is wiped out in a car crash and she’s left in a coma, but through a mystical narrative device she’s split between her comatose self and a “spirit” self who wanders around the hospital wondering if she should succumb or awake as an orphan (albeit with a hunky boyfriend). I’m not familiar with the YA novels of Gayle Forman, but I’m pretty sure she reads Nicholas Sparks. Manipulative, banal and relentlessly drippy. But the acting’s good, especially Chloë Grace Moretz, who at 17 is showing signs that she just might survive the transition from child sensation to grown-up actor. Japanese title: If I Stay: Ai ga Kaeru Basho (106 min)