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‘If I Stay’ – Cinematic Adaptation Review

Original Writing

“Sometimes, you make choices in life.
And sometimes, choices make you.”

After watching Forman’s novel come to life, I was overcome by both extreme sadness that the film was over, and complete ecstasy that the film was exactly how I envisioned it to be.

Mia, a girl with her whole life ahead of her, suddenly finds herself in a coma after a fatal car accident which took the lives of her parents and younger brother, Teddy. The novel, and the film, takes us through a series of flashbacks into Mia’s life and memorable moments which predominately surround her love interest, Adam. The reader is left right up until the end of the story to find out whether or not Mia survives the crash, and the journey from start to end is both tragically endearing and overwhelmingly exhilarating with a few life lessons along the way.

The character of Adam is strangely and seductively compelling, played exquisitely by Jamie Blackley, and represents the conflicts of love and morality thrown into question when someone we love is almost lost to us. I fell in love with his character from the moment Forman introduced us to him; a leather jacket-wearing rockstar who wears his heart on his sleeve and falls for the girl who remained invisible to all but him. Boys wanted to be him. Girls wanted to be on him. Right up until the very end of the story, Adam, and Blackley, did not disappoint.

Chloë Grace Moretz was brilliantly casted to play Mia Hall. She conveyed every emotion I felt whilst reading the novel, and I don’t think anyone else could have captured the essence of Mia Hall the way Moretz did.

I find that the music complimented the film perfectly, too. Very well chosen in accordance with the novel.

I cannot express how amazing it feels to read a book, fall in love with it, then see it on a screen exactly the way you imagined it would be.

So thank you, Gayle Forman, for manipulating me into thinking that true love exists in the form of a rocker, and to the cast of If I Stay, for bringing my imagination to life.

– Juliann Garey

Quotes

Not everyone can feel things as deeply as you. Most people, their feelings are… bland, tasteless. They’ll never understand what it’s like to read a poem and feel almost like they’re flying, or to see a bleeding fish and feel grief that shatters their heart…

Too Bright to Hear, Too Loud to See

The Lynching of Farkhunda; The Lynching of Women

Current Affairs

They portrayed her as a woman who suffered from mental illness, and was mentally unstable when all she was doing was standing up against lies being told in the name of religion. She was the voice of truth, of reason, and her voice was suppressed by men who believed their voices were louder, more important and should be listened to instead of hers.

I find it strange and slightly shocking that Farkhunda’s killers did not once question the mullah’s claims of the victim burning the Qur’an; they jumped to attack a woman, innocently defying a man who was selling lies to vulnerable women. I think the real issue here is the fundamental flaw in the Middle Eastern society; the male attitude towards women. Women have always been perceived as inferior in society; in many, they still do.

However, I believe that the despicable attitude towards women in countries such as Afghanistan is predominately due to the cultural conditioning men are exposed to. They know no other way of treating women, this is the attitude they have adopted from their fathers, brothers, grandfathers and uncles. Not all men have this attitude, but the society
cannot move forward unless there is a reformation of this culture.
Afghanistan has suffered at the hands of violence for years, could it be that these men who killed Farkhunda are a product of the violence in which they have been raised – because they know nothing else? Can we find it in ourselves to forgive them because it’s not really their fault?
I think not.
I think it takes a great lack of human nature in order to punch, kick, stand on and jump on a young woman until her face is unrecognisable, only to then SET FIRE to her body at a riverside. I don’t believe for one second that these men have a conscience or humanity.

An educated woman was condemned to death by a group of men who believed the lies of a man who could not bear to be
defied, confronted for manipulating young women. The fact that an official investigator claimed there was no evidence for the mullah’s claims of Farkhunda burning the Qur’an (BBC News, 24th March) reinforces the male perception of women. The mullah, along with the barbaric murders, took it upon themselves to take away a life. The heavy irony of this situation is that Farkhunda was accused of blasphemy, and in the name of Islam, the men killed her. An act of murder is a sin in the Qur’an;

Whoever slays a soul, unless it be for a manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men;
and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men.(Surah al-Mā’ida 5:32)

Farkhunda was murdered for speaking out.
Her voice was silenced through horrific violence.
A mob of men killed her and showed no mercy or remorse.
It’s time to reform the outdated culture in the Middle East and Asia.
Women should not have to be killed for us to realise that it is time for change.

#JusticeForFarkhunda
#Kabul
#JusticeForWomen