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If I Stay | 2014 | PG-13 | - 5.4.3

A high school senior (Chloe Grace Moretz) is busy with her application to Juilliard, her cello and her headstrong boyfriend until a horrific traffic accident steals her family and locks her into a coma. Also with Mireille Enos, Joshua Leonard, Stacy Keach and Jamie Blackley. Directed by R. J. Cutler. [1:46]

SEX/NUDITY 5 - Several scenes show a teen boy and a teen girl kissing passionately for a prolonged time in a bedroom, on the street, at a boathouse and in a parking lot and in one sequence the teen couple kisses while clothed and the scene switches back and forth to a close-up view: her hand stroking his bare shoulder, their hands clasping and their forearms bare, and finally, their bare shoulders as they kiss in a horizontal position as the sequence ends (sex is implied). A teen boy and a teen girl kiss in her bedroom and we see them in her bed with a quilt covering most of their bodies, apparently after sex; we see his full bare chest, shoulders and arms, and her bare shoulders and arms.
 In a high school hallway teen girls wear tops that bare a few inches of midriff all the way around. In one scene, a teen boy raises an arm, which pulls his shirt up to reveal about three inches of his bare side and back. Teen girls wear scoop neck tops in several scenes that reveal moderate cleavage. A woman wears a strapless gown that shows bare shoulders, arms and a little cleavage. A female rock singer wears an open necked blouse that reveals substantial cleavage that bounces as she sings and hops up and down. In a bar where a costume party is held, many women wear short skirts that reveal partially bare thighs, and tops that reveal some cleavage.
 In a few scenes, a teen boy and a teen girl hold hands. A teen boy tells his girlfriend that a female band member is "into girls" and we see a gay girl kiss another girl on the lips in the background. A husband and his wife kiss quickly in several scenes at home.
 A teen boy asks a teen girl to live with him and she agrees. A teen boy tells a friend that he fell in love with his girlfriend the first time he saw her play the cello. In a high school a teen girl tells another teen girl, "He's into you." A man in a skeleton costume says to a woman, "Hey! Wanna bone?" (sex implied) and people laugh. A loud rock song features the lyrics "I want what you've got. Give it to me," suggesting sex. A teen boy says that guys join rock groups to get laid and let out rage. A teen girl says jokingly that she plays classical music in order to get the guys.
 A teen boy sucks the bee stinger out of a teen girl's hand; a woman says it is romantic and her husband says, "Settle down. You're already knocked up." A band member autographs a woman's chest over her left breast; she is wearing a low cut dress with thin straps that reveal bare shoulders and some cleavage.
 A woman, listening to a little girl playing a cello says, "This is the reason why I could never procreate" and weeks later, we see the woman pregnant, with a slightly bulging belly. We see a pregnant woman with her belly very swollen, followed by a quick flash forward of her husband holding a tiny baby and we see only the top of its head.


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VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - The film centers on a teenage girl left in a coma in ICU after a car accident kills her family: her spirit or consciousness is shown wandering the halls of the hospital, barefoot, attempting to communicate with people and remembering her life in flashbacks.
 A family drives on a wet road in winter with mom and dad in the front seat and a teenage girl and younger brother in the back seat; the father swerves to avoid an oncoming vehicle (no crash noise), and mist and smoke rise as the camera cuts to a fuzzy view of bare tree tops from the point of view of the ground; the teen girl rises from a prone position and wanders around the crash scene while the car sits on its roof with flames at the front axle; an EMT closes up a body bag that we later hear was the girl's mother and the girl walks to a group of crouching EMTs and sees herself lying in the snow with blood spreading under her, on her face and leg.
 We see six long, bloody instruments extending from an injured teen girl's stomach as surgeons manipulate them. A man on a gurney is shown with a gauze patch over one eye and a neck brace. A man with thick bandages around his neck and a gauze eye patch are shown in a hospital bed. A young boy lies sleeping with an oxygen mask on his face and an IV line and blood pressure cuff on his arm in a hospital room while monitors beep; we hear that the boy and a man died and we see and hear their families crying.
 A young man enters an ICU room, but two guards forcefully pull him out of the room and off the hospital floor as he shouts. A young man runs into a hospital and tries to enter the ICU room of his girlfriend several times, but a nurse and security guards shout loudly each time and stop him.
 Medical staff in scrubs rush through hospital corridors as a teen girl's spirit runs beside her own gurney and looks horrified as a doctor says that she is in critical condition and needs to start fighting, because she has broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a damaged spleen, broken bones, and internal bleeding. In an operating room, a nurse leans down to an injured teen girl's ear and says, "If you live. If you die. It's all up to you." An older man sits by a teen girl‘s bed in ICU and cries as her spirit stands by the bed and speaks to him and he seems to be hearing her; he says, "If you want to go, I want you to know it's okay" and the spirit says, "Thank you!" A young woman sits by a teen girl's bed in ICU and says that it's OK if she wants to go, while crying a bit. A young man pleads with a teen girl in a coma to wake up and live, but says, "It's okay if you want to go. I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go." A teen girl in a coma sees a bright, hazy yellow light at the end of a hallway, followed by flashbacks of her life in a quickening sequence, followed by loud crunching sounds off screen and the screen goes white. An injured teen girl's closed eyelids become progressively more red and sunken, finally turning purple.
 Several scenes show the spirit of a teen girl walking through a hallway toward a bright but hazy light that fills the scene; in one scene, she runs down a hallway toward the camera, slides to a stop on her bottom, pounds the floor with her fists, and screams loudly, "God!" A young woman tells a hospital guard that a girl is having a baby in a bathroom on the floor above, there is blood everywhere, and then she screams.
 A former rock band member has many tattoos covering his forearms and a large black spider web tattoo on his upper arm; flashbacks show him on a stage, singing punk rock with a band called Nasty Bruises, whose members sweat and "head bang" (bob heads violently) as the audience dances and shouts loudly. Several flashback sequences feature a punk band in clubs, singing and head banging with loud music as crowds cheer and dance.
 A few scenes feature a teen boy and a teen girl arguing about their future lives and careers, mostly about which one's career is more important and who should relocate for the other's work; she cries several times and they break up and reconnect a few times. A teen girl tells her female friend about a teen boy, "He better be nice to you or I'll squash him like the bug he is." A teen girl's friend tells her that "If you turn into one of ‘those' girls [snobby band members' girlfriends] I'll shoot you" and the other girl says, "I'll give you the gun." In three scenes, a teen girl says that she feels strange about life, like the Martian in the family and like a fish on Mars. A teen girl says that she plays music as if she were possessed by it.

LANGUAGE 3 - 9 mild obscenities, 2 Shut Ups, 13 scatological terms (once by a 4- or 5-year-old boy), 3 anatomical terms, name-calling (crazy, insane, dumb, liar, tool, job [like "nut job"], fools, ridiculous, riffraff, naïve, stinking mess), stereotypical references to teenagers, parents, musicians, groupies, medical professionals, teachers, coffee drinkers, abandoned children, 16 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Jesus, Oh God, God, My God, Thank God, Amen, Sister).

SUBSTANCE USE - Three patients in ICU receive IV fluids through a tube/needle in one arm and wear oxygen masks, a patient on an operating table receives two IVs of clear liquids and one IV of blood through tubes going to the arms, a man compares coffee for a child to crack cocaine and says that "You don't give crack to someone who is already on speed," a teen boy says that his favorite song is "I Want to be Sedated," and a band leader says that his band drinks Red Bull energy drink (presumably to stay awake and perform). Two glasses of wine and a wine bottle along with two beer bottles are shown on a table at a dinner (no one is shown drinking), a few party scenes feature high school and college aged boys and girls drinking beer from cups and bottles, a party scene shows champagne being opened and drunk, bottles of beer are seen on a long table at a family celebration (no one is seen drinking), people have Mimosas with breakfast on New Year's Day (no one is shown drinking), a man orders shots of unknown alcohol and a teen girl refuses to drink at first but later chugs a shot, men and women drink from bottles of beer and from mixed drinks and some people drink as they dance in a bar scene, and a man angrily throws a drink off a balcony. A man holds a pipe in his mouth but does not smoke.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Education, goals, decision-making, family, relationships, love, commitment, letting go, accidents, death, Traumatic Brain Injury, recovery, musical snobbery, selfishness, sacrifice.

MESSAGE - Love your family and love the family you choose for yourself.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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