Stay

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with a car crash on Brooklyn Bridge, and introduces Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling), a survivor of the crash, sitting next to a burning car on the bridge.Psychiatrist Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) and his girlfriend an art teacher, Lila (Naomi Watts) are then introduced in a new scene. Sam discusses his patient, Henry, a college student and aspiring artist whom he describes as depressed and paranoid. Sometimes Henry hears voices, and he seems able to predict future events. Henry is also suspicious of Sam because he has suddenly replaced his ordinary psychiatrist, Beth Levy (Janeane Garofalo). Henry has told Sam that he, Henry, will kill himself that Saturday at midnight, which Sam finds very troubling. Lila, who has survived a past suicide attempt, offers to help to dissuade Henry from killing himself.Sam investigates Henry's circumstances in an effort to help. After repeatedly attempting to reach Dr. Levy, he comes to her apartment to find her disoriented and lethargic, mumbling incoherent phrases like "I didn't touch him; I know you're not supposed to move him." Henry claims to have killed both of his parents, but Sam finds Henry's mother (Kate Burton) and her dog living in a bare house, confused about Sam's identity (she insists that he is Henry) and refuses to respond to his questions. Henry's mother insists on feeding Sam, but when she opens the fridge it is completely empty. Her head starts bleeding and when Henry attempts to help her, her dog bites Sam.At the clinic to have his arm bandaged, Sam discusses the visit with a police officer who is curious as to why he would visit that house. Sam explains what happened, but the police officer tells him that the woman who lived there is dead. This seems to send Sam into a fugue in which the same scene is repeated several times.Later, Sam contacts a waitress named Athena (Elizabeth Reaser), whom Henry has mentioned and fallen in love with. She is an aspiring actress and he meets her at a script reading where she is reading lines from Hamlet with another man. She agrees to take him to Henry, but after a long trip down winding staircases he loses her. When he gets back to the rehearsal room, she is there reading the same lines as when he first met her.The search continues until 11:33 pm on Saturday, less than half an hour before Henry plans to kill himself. At a bookshop known to have been frequented by Henry, Sam finds a painting that Henry had painted and bartered for books about Henry's favorite artist. He learns that the artist had killed himself on Brooklyn Bridge, on his twenty-first birthday. Henry's twenty-first birthday is Sunday, and Sam realizes that Henry plans to commit suicide on Brooklyn Bridge in imitation of the artist.Sam finds Henry on the Brooklyn Bridge in a physical atmosphere that is increasingly unraveling. Sam turns away as Henry puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.The car crash of the first scene is then reprised. Henry was fatally wounded in the crash but, in his last moments, is suffering survivor guilt. Each of the characters introduced earlier in the film was in fact a random spectator at the site of the crash, including Sam, a doctor, and Lila, a nurse, who treat Henry in an attempt to save him. The brief remarks they make are the same ones heard previously by their dream-world counterparts earlier in the film. They fail to rescue Henry, and Henry dies, but not before seeing Lila as Athena and proposing to her, which Lila accepts out of sympathy.The entire film up until Henry's death had existed only in his mind - in his last moments... (a plot device used most famously in the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge). However, there are clues that the people surrounding Henry as he lay dying were actually drawn into another world in some way. For instance, after Henry dies and is being loaded into a body bag, Janeane Garofalo's character is heard telling her name to the police: Elizabeth Levy. Since Henry died before hearing this, he would have no way of knowing how to "dream" her true name. Additionally, before parting, Sam appears to get a flash in his mind of the experiences between him and Lila that Henry had constructed, and asks Lila out for coffee.

Tags: psychological, paranormal, plot twist, flashback, psychedelic, romantic, storytelling

Review:
I love seeing a good representation of the human mind on film and that is exactly what this film shows so well.It's about a college student (Ryan Gosling) who tells his shrink (Ewan McGregor) that he is going to kill himself on the stroke of midnight this Saturday, leaving his shrink to enlist the help of his formerly suicidal girlfriend (Naomi Watts) to figure out why he wants to kill himself and how to stop him, while his world falls apart.It's directed by Marc Forster of Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland fame.
After thinking about it for a day I'm pretty sure that I could explain everything in the movie, even what the hell is up with Ewan McGregor's pants, Why Gosling wanted to commit suicide and the twins and triplets.It was fun was figuring out what the rest of the movie meant after seeing its end, the solution.
I know I'm going to have to see it at least once more, because there's so much stuff going on that it's impossible to give Stay the attention in deserves in one viewing.First and foremost, although I won't give away the plot here, I'll say that the movie (thankfully) does not rely on a surprise ending for the totality of its impact.
Unlike some of the worst examples of this genre (i.e. The Sixth Sense), Stay is not a film that "hides the ball," but instead presents you with characters and a storyline, and asks you to draw your own conclusions.That said, there isn't an obvious solution to the movie.
Simultaneously, and perhaps subconsciously, it also meditates on weighty issues of reality and identity- consider what the imperative "Stay" means to different characters at different points in the film, and it's almost like you're watching an entirely different movie than you originally thought.Finally, the visuals in this movie provide their own context and narrative regarding the fragile nature of human memory and perception.
This is the best looking movie I've seen in a long time, and the fact that it's combined with such a great story and cast makes this a rare treat.If there is a weak link here, it's probably Gosling, who I think missed some opportunities to really dig in with his character and creep us out.
However, it's the path that leads to the end that makes the time enjoyable.Naomi Watts, as usual, is perfect, and Ewan McGregor has again picked one of the scripts that was for the art and not the money.
Forster uses this technique, as well as many other amazing tricks, throughout, and it's no less brilliant every time we see it them.As I said, the plot will remind you of a few other movies, yet the actual twisted ending, and the avenue which Forster and the writers take us there, is so completely different and interesting that this film simply must be seen.McGregor did a fantastic job as psychiatrist Sam Foster, and Gosling was unbelievably realistic and convincing as the mentally unstable patient.
In fact I went into this movie dreading all the jump scenes and disturbing, weirdness that would make me run from my car to my front door at night, but really this is a straight up thriller in the vein of "12 Monkeys" and "Sixth Sense" (minus the ghostly appearances and dead people).If you consider yourself someone who is tired of Hollywood's big-budget, slam-bang drivel and want to actually have your brain scrambling with thoughts throughout an entire film, RUN, do not walk, and see this film..
I am so glad that I watched it, because this film left me thinking for ages.This is a thriller about a psychiatrist (which I happen to be one) trying to help a depressed & suicidal patient.
Mark Forster is an absolute genius.The plots basically centers around two characters, Sam Foster(Ewan McGregor) and Henry Letham(Ryan Gosling).
Directed by Marc Forster (Monster Ball, Finding Neverland, and the upcoming The Kite Runner) and based on a story and screenplay by David Benioff (Troy, The 25th Hour, and the upcoming The Kite Runner!), STAY is more a mind-bending visual excursion that explores some dark psychological questions dealing with life, death, suicide, occult, and a mélange of all of these.The opening of the film is a twisted visual experience that has to do with a car crashing on a bridge, fire, and a body - all given during the opening credits.
Ultimately Sam engages the services of a mental institution run by Dr Ren (BD Wong) and gains the promise that the institution will put a hold on Henry so that he will be unable to commit suicide.In the midst of this race Sam's world begins to crumble, people don't make sense, stories clash, and Sam tumbles around in a state closely resembling madness until the final frames when the entire situation of the film is made clear.
He asks his girlfriend Lila Culpepper (Naomi Watts) to help himself to stay lucid, while trying to solve the intriguing situation of Henry.I am a great fan of director Marc Foster, with his dramatic "Everything Put Together" and "Monster's Ball", and the wonderful "Finding Neverland".
But without altering this plot as written, director Marc Forster has invented an editing style (combined with a rigorous control of transitions and point of view) to create nothing less than a parallel plot to the film, in which the professor must contend with the horror of his own descent into full-blown psychosis.Since the director conveys this parallel plot entirely through visual means, and within the point of view of the hero of the story, its consequences are all the more disconcerting, and we feel the terror of the realization of losing one's mind more acutely than in any previous screen depiction of madness I have seen.Much as the young artist's psychotic identity implicitly consumes the identity of his psychiatrist, so does the visual plot consume the overt, written plot of the film, like an unconscious motivation that overcomes a conscious one.
too bad, this movie is full of twist and turns, if anyone has seen "a spiders web", its a little like that, and a touch like Donnie Darko, minus the crazed demon bunny, a truly beautifully shot film,the director, and director of photography,should both be given an awarded for the way it was shot, any one who can appreciate art can appreciate this movie, between the flow shot's, and the fades, it was amazing, and i was in awe, i fully recommend it of you haven't seen it, its worth the price of admission, and will loose a great deal of it's affect on a small screen, or regular TV, again i urge you to go see it while it's still in theaters.
The "surprise" ending is a little overused, but the way the movie uses the perspective of the story to confuse the viewer was great.
I wasn't a big fan of "Monster's Ball" (sorry) and admit I have not seen "Finding Neverland", but director Marc Forster is a film making God in my book for this work of art.
Add to that very solid performances by Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts and the fact that Ryan Gosling may be the most interesting and engrossing actor of our time, and you have a film worth all of your attention as well as the price of admission and even the cost of parking!
Though Marc Foster is a "new" director (his curriculum includes only "Monster's Ball", "Finding Neverland" and other 2 less known movies), the guy shows great competence behind the cameras, using non-conventional angles and a very interesting film edition, to get the audience involved in the confusion that is going on Sam's mind - or perhaps, another character's mind.
***SPOILERS*** Surviving a fiery car crash on the Brooklyn Bridge young 20 year-old art student Henry Letham, Ryan Gosling, goes to psychiatrist Sam Foster's, Ewan McGregor, office seeking help for the strange and weird experiences he's been going through since that accident.Not wanting to live anymore and face the thought that he was responsible for his parents death Henry tells Dr. Sam Foster that the following Saturday, his 21t birthday, at midnight he's going to kill himself.
Sam now trying to save himself as well as Henry backtracks in order to find all the people who knew and were involved with Henry as he starts to get the eerie feeling that he's somehow spiritual connected with his patient and that Henry's impending demise will also be his own.The movie "Stay" has Sam going through a number of Daja-Vu and astral, as well as real world experiences.As he tries to prevent Henry from taking his life and at the same time finding out the dark secret in Henry's past that's driving him to do just that.
We see in a number of flash backs Henry with his girlfriend Athena, Elizabeth Reasen, and parents in a car driving through Brooklyn Heights to make their way, and fatal turn, on the world famous bridge; the best example of art in the 19th century as Henry put it.A bit, if not very, confusing movie about life and death and how the world of the living and that of the dead sometimes interact with each other and even crosses over to give us a glimpse of what really is the difference, if there is one, between fantasy and reality when the physical and ethereal worlds suddenly collied with surprising and devastating results..
While it's best to keep an open mind through until the end of the film, it might play better on DVD/video to rewind, identify symbols, anagrams and numerology, clarify what are manipulative red herrings and what makes sense in a dark "Wizard of Oz" kind of way.
except, there was none of that, anywhere in this unfortunately disappointing film.In theory, the concept had considerable potential, sort of like an offshoot from the "Inception" genre', which really is an engaging and absolutely fine example of filmcraft.Stay, however, simply comes off as a jumbled collection of badly edited, seemingly not quite finished collection of scene clips clumped together in the hope that the supposed trendiness and hype would somehow hide the obvious flaws and annoyingly jumbled together attempt at a theoretically coherent "story".I never put spoilers in my reviews, and have no intention of such now, but even if I wanted to, I don't think such would be possible, in that even in the final scenes of this meandering mishap of an attempted story, the ending was simply another jagged edge of a seemingly unfinished scene waiting for its moment in the editing room.OK, call me a servile dolt for being so dimwitted that I can't gush on and on for endless paragraphs about this supposedly sophisticated, ground breaking fantastic important film .
What's worse, is that the entire movie plays as a set up for the 'twist ending', and by the time it arrives, you've pretty much narrowed down the possibilities on your own  main character is dead, main character is really in the mind of another character, main character is dreaming/hallucinating the whole thing, main character isoh, who cares.There are some genuinely affecting moments.
It's directed by the guy who did 'Monster's Ball' (an Oscar winner) and 'Finding Neverland' (another Oscar winner), and it featured a talented cast from Academy Award Nominee Naomi Watts, the terribly underrated brilliant actor Ewan McGregor and Ryan Gosling - who in all respects is pretty solid for the most part.
The absolute worst part of the film is the ending (I won't reveal it to all of you wanting to see the movie, though).
All I will tell you is that it definitely ranks into the Top 20 most disappointing and lackluster film endings of all time.In conclusion, 'Stay' isn't worth your money at the theaters or even in the videostore.
'Stay' is a film with a bunch of poor aspects except the great acting (especially from Gosling) which can't even begin to boost the overall crappiness of the movie.
All and all, the movie succeeded moving concepts of death and flow of time in a very interesting and fresh way, that it made everything so connected and universal and also timeless, that it almost felt watching a very well edited dream of a genius mind.
""Sam Foster(Ewan McGregor): If this is a dream, the whole world is inside it.""If you're looking for an amazing movie that's here:STAY It's a complex but complete movie.I think that the best example for Near Death Experience(NDE) is shown in this movie and it represents us the perspicacity of both director and writer.
Ryan Gosling plays appreciable and is the best for his role.His glance makes him and the movie so mysterious.The character of Henry Letham can show us both innocence and guilty in his eyes.Guilty;that he thinks about his personality that made him to say and write "forgive me" again and again.And innocence;that Dr.Sam Foster could find in Henrie's conscience and wanna show to Henry.
Usually the point of films that use this plot gimmick is that it makes you want to see it over again to see how everything fits together once you know the ending.
Marc Foster's Stay is hauntingly beautiful and a tremendous piece of work, and it is definitely one of my all time favorites but as I said this is not your typical movie.You either hate it or you love it.
Not only does it feature three actors I'd been very fond of for some time--Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, and Ryan Gosling--it is well-scripted and full of beautiful cinematography.
I won't go into too much detail, but if you've seen Jacob's Ladder, Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, American Beauty, Donnie Darko, or even just played the video game Silent Hill 2, then the foundations have been laid and you are canny enough to understand the general landscape of "Stay", which similarly asks questions about life and death, and tries to offer new thoughts about the possible answers.
But "Stay" takes that premise a step further with an interesting twist at the very end, blurring the lines even more, creating an explorative film which--like most of the above-mentioned works--you may find you have to think about for quite some time after watching it.
You had to have watched at least one of the above films in your respective careers, and Donnie Darko is much more obscure about what it means, but it still was positively lauded.I'm not the type who usually spouts off, "Well, you just didn't understand it!" when something just didn't bother to make sense--on the contrary, I usually want things spelled out for me by the time the curtains are beginning to lower, and yet, I had no doubt at the end of the film what it was about, or what the events within it meant.
At the end of the film you see what happens in real life, Ewen Mcgreggor and Naomi Watts are the people on the scene trying to take care of him after his tire blows out on the Brooklyn Bridge and he gets into a serious car accident, killing his almost fiancé and his mother and father, and leaving him feeling guilty as he slowly dies and takes in his surroundings.
In fact, several times during the film, a main character writes, "Forgive me," on his apartment walls - well, it's the director that should plead for forgiveness after subjecting the viewer to this mind-numbing garbage that blurs the line between reality and illusion so that it becomes totally obscured in a sea of ridiculous, random scenes that even Quentin Tarantino or Roman Polanski would find disturbing.It all starts from the beginning where a New York art student, Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling, "The Notebook") sits in front of a burning SUV on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Henry then turns into Ewan MacGregor (as psychiatrist Dr. Sam Foster), who is spending some quality time with his suicidal girlfriend, Lila (Naomi Watts, the "Ring" films), before heading to the office to diagnose - guess who - Henry Letham.Henry is a pale, thin, eternally angry individual who burns himself with cigarettes, walks around in the rain for no reason and tells the doc he is going to kill himself within the week.
As Sam tries to help his idiotic patient, he finds himself dragged into a bizarre world where dreams and real life (as well as coherent plot, storyline, character development, editing and competent film-making) have no meaning.Later, we meet (also for no apparent reason) Bob Hoskins (as a blind guy Henry claims to be his father), Kate Burton (as his dead mom), his ghost dog, Janeane Garofalo (as a drunk, depressed, drugged up colleague of Sam's - sort of like she is in real life), and a little kid with a balloon that keeps asking if Henry is going to die.
Naomi Watts is along for the ride as McGregor's post-suicidal art school professor girlfriend, and like most movies she stars in, she's the best thing about "Stay." Exaggerated color schemes and camera angles highlight this Marc Forster film (who previously directed "Monster's Ball" and "Finding Neverland") that plays like a Euro-trash music video director's version of a David Lynch film.
I've also seen great movies with the other two main actors of this film, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling, such as The Ring and The Notebook.
Perhaps this is the point of Stay: To leave you thinking, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaa?" But if you're looking for a good "weird-for-the-sake-of-weird" film, I highly recommend you go to the movie store and rent Donnie Darko.
Stay is an interesting, stylish, psychological thriller with some great leads attached, the problem is that for the most part the audience has no idea what is going on.Even after the twist ending I was still like, what just happened?
This is one of those films that at the end of it you may find yourself saying "I think I get it but maybe I don't." You might have to watch Stay at least two times to completely get the film.