This is a review for the movie Stay, and I’ll be breaking it into two parts. The first is for those of you who haven’t watched it and the second is for us who have watched it but need an explanation to understand the movie. (cause the movie’s too smart for most of us, me included)
Stay(2005) is directed by Marc foster, starring Ewan Mcgregor, Naomi Watts, and Ryan Gosling. You can catch the trailer by clicking the pic on your right.
Stay is a story of a psychologist (Ewan McGregor) trying to unravel the twisted trauma of a suicidal young man (Ryan Gosling) and convince him that life is worth living, Stay
is a mystery wrapped in a dreamy enigma.
Right from the start, Stay demands our attention. You are compelled to take in every visual clue given and try to make sense of it all. This is cause you get the feeling that something isn’t right, the visual pieces do not add up (this is why it frustrates many, cause people don’t like to think when watching a movie). The transitions from one shot to the other are swift and suble at the same time, a visual strategy so well done by Mark Foster, which isn’t there for show rather is crucial to understanding the meaning and perspective of the movie. If you pay close attention to the movie, you’ll probably feel like you’ve seen a character before; there are also a few instances where you see doubles or multilples of the same person, all this seems odd, but hold on to those things till the end for an explanation.
Another odd thing you notice about the movie is that the characters do not evolve. They seem to have a specific role to play and do just that to further the story as Dr.Sam (Mcgregor) tries to solve the reason behind Henry’s (Gosling) words, who claimed to having hurt some people, and had to kill himself on saturday midnight. Ultimately when we come to the end, things seem to finally tie up. To understand why we were led to this, we have to think back through the whole movie, to reveal the purpose of it all.
Part 2: Breaking Stay
Ok, so you’ve watched the movie. But it still leaves you puzzled, had me too the first time I watched it, so I watched it again, and the revelations was very satisfying. This is the only movie I really enjoyed watching it a second time. Ok the below explantion’s a bit of rambling excuse my bad writing.
The entire movie is Henry’s Stream of conciousness, all the characters who surround him in the last scene are given a role by Henry. They present various aspect of Herny’s character. Beth, was the 1st person at the site of the accident, but she didn’t help instead she cried “i didn’t move him, i know your not suppose to move them”. Hence Henry gave her the role of a psychiatrist whom he intented to meet in the start of the movie but wasn’t available, instead Dr. Sam who was the first person to help Henry in the accident scene, fills in for Dr.beth(whom Henry makes her to be suffering from trauma or some psychological breakdown). From what I can tell, Henry probably entered into this dream when he heard Dr.Sam tell Nurse Lila that the others in the car didn’t make it. So that’s probably why he struggles with the decision to live or die after having killed the people he loved.
In case you were thinking Why is Sam’s trousers just too short
, well the reason could be because when Henry first sees Sam (the last scene: Henry’s dying moments) he sees him from that particularly low angle distorting his perspective of Sam’s pants and jacket. Many shots of the movie have that awkward low tilted shot, giving us more of Henry’s perspective. You’ll also notice that some of the same actors keep appearing with different roles, which are some how connected with what they do or say in Henry’s dying moments, like the old man instructing the lifting of the piano, who later opens the door to henry’s apartment or the old man who mutters” he’s not gonna make it” and the mom and the kid with the balloon. You’ll also see many doubles and triples, easily noticed in the scene where the students exit the lecture hall.
Often you’ll hear that the background sound has got the sounds of cars screeching, or muffled voices, and traffic – those are instances where real world events leak into Henry’s dream, no wonder he says he hears things. What about all those spiraling stairs? Well I think we’ve all had psychedelic spiraling dreams; where we can’t tell if we’re awake or not – so I guess the director’s making it obvious to us, tripping on the world as an illlusion theme, of dreams within dreams. There are a few references to Buddha in the movie, like when Henry heals his dad’s blindness, he does a namaste
with his hands – you could also associate that gesture to Hinduism and yoga i guess. But yeah later when Henry’s dad meets with Sam, he quotes Buddha’s saying “the world is an illusion”, this brings me to an ealier scene where Henry mutters Your troubles will cease and fortune will smile upon you
, then later Sam gets those same lines from his fortune cookies… Then there’s Athena, who is cast as Ophelia (who is doomed to die), but would rather be in Hamlet’s shoes (debating death, as Henry is) HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams
… lots of speculations but It’s all been good.
People can interpret this movie however they see it. Because this movie is as open-ended as any movie gets.
Man, I’ve read your words and i’ve seen the movie three times. It happened just as you say. The first time I saw it, I stay like 45 minutes sitting on the chair of the theather, thinking and making coments with my friends of what’s the meaning of the movie was. I got the mesage that the hole movie is was Henry’s mind makes of the seconds his dying. In my country they name the movie “el umbral”, which means a space between two worlds.
The second time I saw the movie I was more excited that the first time, Many details that i hadn’t understood, they came out clean.
I have only one demand. Do you know why Lila tried to kill herself in this fantasy world?, is she the opposite of Henry, a person who tried to die, but realized that the world is “too dammed beatufull”. Man i guess I just understand her character.
Ok, well Hope you read this
Bye and congratulations for such a good resume.
hey..thnx…4 helpin…i hav seen da movie..hmm..i think dis was my 4th time..so now i had 2 find out wat was dere actually..bt..i cudn’t undertstand da movie at all..nd had my own views…bt after readin urs…i gt it…yeah..i must hav thot dat way…newayz…it ws a gr8 help…nd now i got da movie fully…thnx 2 ya!….its actually vry nice movie….i njoi it evrytime i c…nd m full in2 da movie wen i c it…nd like try 2 relate it wid my life….bt…its like dat….nd thnx again..!
Yea i figured out the majority of it the first time i saw it, but the second time i realized the rest. I think your analysis was quite eloquent. He decides to live right? I thought the movie was great and your observations are good as well.
I’ve seen this movie six times, and even after that and reading your explanation, I still don’t understand the movie.
thank you so much for explaining this movie!!! i did not get it at all. and it really bothered me that Sam’s pants were really short. lol. well thanks again now i know that i didnt waste two hours.
Anyone of any movies that are like this where you are really left thinking?
OMG!!! thank u so much for the explanation!!!
i have to admit i didnt understand it at all. But now i do and its awesoem!!thx!!!
Hi, well I’ve just seen this movie for the fifth or sixth time, and I somewhat agree with you (that the movie is henry’s subconscious after the accident that kills his girlfriend and parents), but there are a number of things that still don’t make sense- For instance, when sam calls lila at the end of the movie, and says, “I just want you to know that I love you”, and she looks at the paintings in her studio (that say henry latham) and she freaks out and goes down the stairs, and is locked in- is her intention to chase after Sam?
Anyhow, yours is the easiest explanation, although I flirted with the thought that possibly we are on another plane/existance, and everyone is dead there, including Lila (who sam failed to save from suicide),beth has already overdosed (not saved by sam either), Leon and Henrys mother obviously, Athena, the kid with the balloon, everyone is already dead- leaving the question, is sam dead too? or is he in some kind of limbo left to run around and save everyone? (like lila, beth and henry), and keeps failing to do so??
then I had thoughts that perhaps henry and sam are that artist (is it tristan? french, anyhow), and that they/he keeps reliving a hell after commiting suicide as that artist, cursed to keep reliving and dying, blah blah you get the picture.
anyhow, I love this movie… just for the fact that it’s made me think so very much, and the cinematography is effin fantastic, the subtle clues (or are they?) throughout. I watched it once just to watch for the subtleties, like, did you know that Henry’s bridge painting is shown throughout the movie? it’s in sam and lila’s bedroom at the beginning, in the bookstore, in lila’s studio, etc There are also pictures of the walrus’ that sam and henry see at the aquarium in lila’s studios too. And I wish to god I could understand why the halls of the college are filled with twins and triplets (which is what got me thinking that perhaps henry’s life was a duplicate of sam’s and the french artist). Urk!
Maybe the movie was just all about the line about the world being an illusion, who knows? I wish the director would explain now, Now that the movie has been out for years!
a friend of mine totally agrees with your opinion but for me the movie shows that we can never be certain that something it’s real or not. the best line to see that it’s by henry’s father that says “the world is an illusion”. from my point of view, we can’t know what’s real or not because you don’t have enough facts to prove it so. for instance. henry meets sam who is a pschyciatrist but in the end of the movie sam is a doctor. Lila is a painter but in the end a nurse. all the characters have different characteristics from the beggining to the end. i think that the movie is about how life could be different if we chose to live it in another way. think of another thing. all the characters that we meet at the movie are people that henry met in his life. it could be a last dream of his but it could also be a whole different life for him. i mean that we come and go again and again and in our lifes we are gonna meet again the exact same people but they could have different places in it. like his father who doesn’t recognizes him if after henry cured him from his blindness. but then again i even doubt my self by thinking hot sam met henry’s mother and even his dog olive who was dead when henry was 12….also the sheriff said to sam tha henry’s mother was dead in a car accident along her husband nut he didn’t mention anything about henry….still i’m writing down my ideas and i haven’t come to a conclusion…the only thing i gotta to say is that i loved this movie ant that for me it’s like a poem….you can see it from a lot points of view and anyone understands it the way he wants….
P.S.: i’m sorry if i made any mistakes using the language but i wanted to share my ideas!!!!
I love this movie, one of my favorites, and its great to see people that are also trying to figure it out, its like you see soemthing more each time you watch it, and are left with even more questions! I also wish the director/writer would explain the stuff like sam’s pants, no socks, the triplets, the paintings, all that stuff. So glad I found this site to help with some of this. I also wondered at the end this last time I watched it…if it was really Sam that was having the flashbacks…it seems that when the kid dies, he is the one that flashes back to everyone. first time i saw it that way…but not really sure that is it either.