- Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Mia a Spoiled Brat who doesn't care about anyone or anything except getting into her dream school or just a normal teenager going through typical teen angst? Or is it both?
- Base-Breaking Character: While easily the most likable characters in the movie, the whole idea of Mia's parents being rock-obsessed hippies is either charming and makes them even cooler than they already were or is just a lame Totally Radical gimmick.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The scene were a pop star shows up at the hospital to distract the nurses long enough to let Adam sneak in to see Mia. Huh?
- Harsher in Hindsight: At the beginning of the movie when finding out that it's a snow day, Teddy says "School's out forever". For him, it would be.
- Jerkass Woobie: Sure, Mia is kind of a brat and doesn't appreciate how much everyone cares about her, but your loving parents and younger brother all suddenly dying within hours of one another isn't exactly no big deal. She got pretty banged up in the accident herself and will have to go through a lot of physical therapy when she wakes up.
- Narm: The whole concept of a girl defying her parents by playing classical music instead of rock. Get it? Because "normal" kids rebel by listening to rock music?
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic
- It can be difficult to feel bad for Mia. You could just chalk a lot of it up to typical teen behavior, but the story hinges so much on our sympathy for her that she just comes off as selfish. She treats everyone with a dismissive coldness, especially her parents who bend over backwards to help her get into her dream school and are nothing but loving of her even if they don't "get" her. Even when she's in limbo and has an outpouring of friends and family coming to her side telling her they're going to help her if she wakes up, it's not until she gets an acceptance letter to Juliard that she decides that she has something to live for.note
- Adam's not much better. He flip-flops with his feeling towards Mia, telling her he loves her one day and then disappearing for days without warning to go on tour. Worse, he throws a tantrum and breaks up with her twice when she tells him that she might be going to New York. It takes her being in a coma for him to even consider just visiting her while she's away (it seems the one thing they have in common is putting their musical ambitions above their loved ones. Go figure).
- Wangst: Again, it's hard to buy Mia's gloominess when she has what can only be described as a perfect life, making her Sadistic Choice feel a lot more like First-World Problems.
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