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STAY Send This Review to a Friend
I stayed but only because I had to. The film “Stay” is such pretentious gibberish that only gluttons for punishment might want to expend their mental energy trying to figure out what the film is all about or trying to say, if anything. Directed by Marc Forster and written by David Benioff, it is one of those conceits that ask audiences to ponder what’s real and what’s imagined, what’s actually happening and what’s suspended somewhere between actual events and what’s brewing in the mind.
The one and only thing going for the film is a good cast, although it is thoroughly wasted. Ewan McGregor is presented as psychiatrist Sam Foster, who substitutes for another shrink and finds himself trying to treat Ryan Gosling as Henry, a disturbed young man who insists that he is going to commit suicide. Sam's mission becomes trying to stop him, but Sam becomes disturbed himself by events that seem to repeat themselves.
Naomi Watts is Sam’s girlfriend Lila, who has come back from depression. Other noteworthy actors in supporting roles include Kate Burton, Bob Hoskins, Janeane Garolfalo and B.D.Wong.
Visually, the film lays on plenty of hocus pocus involving a car crash, a spinning car wheel and other devices meant to imply mystery and depth. There may be mystery, but depth is only applicable to the despair you might find having to sit through the screenplay’s meanderings. A 20th Century Fox release.
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