Movie
The Choice
Narrative tropes
Love Conquers All
highTravis's love is the literal mechanism that saves Gabby: he refuses to remove life support against medical advice, visits daily for over 90 days speaking to her, and she wakes stating she heard every word. Love transcends physical unconsciousness, motivates the decisive act (refusing to give up), saves a character from death, and is framed explicitly as the most powerful force in the story.
About this trope: Love — romantic, familial, or platonic — is presented as the ultimate force that overcomes any obstacle including death, physics, evil, or cosmic forces. Love is a literal power.
Humans Never Give Up
highTravis faces objectively hopeless odds — doctors offer little hope after 90+ days — yet refuses to authorize removal of life support and continues daily visits. His refusal to surrender when logic says otherwise is the emotional core of the second half, hope persists without rational justification, and the climax is the decision to keep going rather than the recovery itself.
About this trope: Facing impossible odds, humans endure, adapt, and find reasons to keep going. Resilience and refusal to surrender is humanity's defining and most admirable trait.
Cultural messages
Family Is Everything
mediumTravis and Gabby's family (marriage, two children) is threatened by her coma and potential death. Travis subordinates every other consideration to protecting and reuniting his family. The emotional climax is Gabby's return to consciousness and the final scene of the reunited family at their gazebo, with family bonds functioning as the resolution.
About this message: Family bonds — biological or found — are ultimately what saves the day, provides meaning, and matters most. Characters who stray from family suffer; those who return are rewarded.
Movies that share these tropes
Full plot (spoilers)
Travis Shaw is a charming, free-spirited veterinarian living in a small coastal town in Wilmington, North Carolina. When Gabby Holland moves in next door, the two meet on awkward terms after Travis's loud backyard barbecue disrupts her studying. Gabby is a driven medical student in a committed relationship with Dr. Ryan McCarthy. Despite their initial friction, a bond forms when Gabby enlists Travis's help delivering her dog's puppies. While Ryan is away in Atlanta on a work trip, Travis and Gabby spend increasing time together, and their friendship tips into romance. Travis signals his deepening feelings by placing a second Adirondack chair on his lawn and taking Gabby to a private island he holds dear. When Ryan returns unexpectedly and proposes, Gabby is conflicted. She initially distances herself from Travis, telling him their relationship was never serious, and accepts Ryan's proposal. But she cannot suppress her true feelings: she breaks the engagement and accepts Travis's proposal instead. The film then jumps forward several years. Travis and Gabby are married with two young children and living happily in their coastal home. One evening, after waiting for Travis, Gabby goes out and is struck by a car, leaving her in a coma. Doctors give Travis little hope for her recovery, and as days stretch past ninety, he is pressed by family to consider removing life support. Travis refuses, visiting her daily and speaking to her at length, unwilling to give up on the woman he loves. His faith is rewarded: Gabby eventually wakes from the coma and tells Travis she heard every word he said to her during her unconscious state. The film closes with the reunited family together at the gazebo on their property.
Sources: Wikipedia, Web search (multiple review/database sources)