6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Teenage musician Mia and her family are involved in a catastrophic car accident. She then has an out-of-body experience, watching as she is treated at the hospital. Reflecting on her life, friendships, and loves, she faces a profound choice: fight for life at any price or simply slip away and move on.
Starring: Chloë Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, Jamie Blackley, Liana Liberato, Lauren Lee SmithRomance | 100% |
Teen | 71% |
Supernatural | 21% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
French: DTS 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Gayle Forman's successful 2009 novel If I Stay is part of the distinctive subgenre of young adult fiction in which the main character is dying. The continued popularity of such tales speaks to a common experience, probably rooted in early intimations of adult life's uncertainties, coupled with the operatic emotions that make adolescents and even some twenty-somethings experience everything as a matter of life or death. Certainly that was the sensibility guiding the film adaptation of If I Stay, which was produced by MGM and released by Warner Brothers in August 2014. Adapted by Shauna Cross (Whip It) and directed by R.J. Cutler, a documentary filmmaker making his feature debut, the film flew under the radar due to its modest budget but became a minor hit thanks to smart casting choices and the novel's loyal following. MGM has now released the film on Blu-ray, distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.
According to IMDb, If I Stay was shot digitally on an Arri Alexa XT at 2.8K resolution and finished on a 2K digital intermediate. The cinematographer was the distinguished British DP John de Borman (The Full Monty and An Education). In his commentary, director Cutler notes that he wanted to maintain as much of a sense of documentary realism as possible. To that end, he avoided "other worldly" visual effects, allowing Mia's spiritual essence to look, sound and behave just like other people in the hospital. The image on Fox/MGM's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is a solidly workmanlike presentation of how If I Stay would look when projected from a 2K DCP ("digital cinema package"), which would have been the most common form of distribution. The image is sharp and detailed, the blacks are solid and the color palette has been precisely calibrated to achieve specific moods: chill and clinical in the hospital environs, warm and nostalgic in happy remembrances (even when it's snowy and cold outside), gradually desaturating as death approaches. The image often has an almost film-like texture, which is one of the Alexa's hallmarks. Fox has encoded the disc at a high average bitrate of 30.22 Mbps, ensuring that some of the trickier scenes involving clubs with big audiences, school hallways and, of course, the terrible accident aftermath are reproduced in all their detail with no artifacts.
The chief beneficiary of If I Stay's lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack is the carefully selected musical accompaniment that is the subject of an entire separate commentary by the director. When the characters' lives revolve so intensely around music, the music that expresses their emotions should play with great presence and clarity, and the sound mix provides both. (The selections are listed below under "Music Commentary".) Dialogue is clear, with the voiceover narration and character exchanges properly prioritized. Key sound effects get their due, but are relegated subtly to the background, especially in the hospital, with its ever-present beeping of monitors. The nicely calibrated score by Heitor Pereira (Despicable Me) fills in the gaps unobtrusively.
As well-crafted and sincere a film as If I Stay may be, from a perspective much older than that of the target audience, one can't help but notice how much the deck has been stacked in Mia's favor. Yes, she suffers terrible loss, but one must also consider what she has to begin with. She is a musical prodigy, graced with a talent beyond anything that most people, even other musicians, will ever experience. Simply by being herself, she has managed to attract perhaps the most desirable young man in Portland, and although their paths may diverge in the future, the man is here now, hovering at her bedside. She was raised by parents who supported her, believed in her and sacrificed for her; whatever happens in the future, she will always have that bedrock of inner confidence. Few people in a coma after a catastrophic event would have so much calling them back to the land of the living. But Mia isn't a typical person. She's a star, a celebrity-in-the-making, a winner of the brass ring. It's not enough, at least in America, that popular culture invites young people to consider momentous questions of life and death. It must also ask them to imagine themselves in the role of someone "special", "extraodinary" or "chosen"—a Luke Skywalker, a Buffy or a Neo. Choose life as an ordinary person? What a dull idea for a movie! (It wouldn't have to be, but never mind.) Recommended as a Blu-ray. Decide for yourself whether it's your kind of story.
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