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Stay (2005)PLOT SUMMARY:This movie focuses on the attempts of an Ivy League Professor to prevent one of his students from committing suicide. PLAYED: Lila Culpepper TRAILER: http://videodetective.com/trailer-preview.asp?publishedID=426139 ************************************************************* Have a great day to you ALL. Sami 
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Psychological thriller has a breakdown
Ewan McGregor as a psychiatrist and Naomi Watts as his emotionally disturbed girlfriend in 'Stay' STAY With Ewan McGregor, Ryan Gosling, Naomi Watts, Bob Hoskins. Director: Marc Forster. (1:39) R: Language, disturbing images. If "The Sixth Sense" was a bad movie redeemed by its surprise ending, Marc Forster's "Stay" is a seemingly good movie leading to a devastating letdown. For most of its running time, "Stay" is a surreal, riveting psychological drama about identity, guilt and destiny, propelled by strong performances from Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling. But whether you guess the ending early or have it smack you upside the head, the result is the same: You'll be out the price of a ticket. This fanciful material is far afield for both Forster ("Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland") and screenwriter David Benioff ("25th Hour," "Troy"), and though it is physically well-executed - and particularly well-edited - it's the kind of story that leaves you with the urge to lob rotten fruit in the direction of the screen. McGregor plays Sam Foster, a New York psychiatrist whose clients have been mostly "neurotic stockbrokers" until a colleague (Janeane Garofalo) becomes ill and he inherits her most worrisome patient, suicidal college art student Henry Letham (Gosling). Suicide is a tough personal issue for Sam because the woman he loves, art teacher Lila (Watts), barely survived her own suicide attempt and has just gone off the meds that have been keeping her depression under control. Henry has a very special case of depression: He hears voices, he implies that he has murdered his parents and - like the child in "Sixth Sense" - he sees dead people. Though he is delusional, Henry has a clear plan: Three days after meeting Sam, he intends to go to the Brooklyn Bridge, where, at the stroke of midnight on his 21st birthday, he'll shoot himself, just as his favorite painter had done more than a century earlier. Sam tells Lila that he will not let that happen, and devotes himself to tracking Henry down and stopping him. This could be the makings of an intense, straightforward, beat-the-clock thriller. But nothing is straightforward about the story or any of its characters, including Sam's blind chess companion and fellow shrink Leon (Bob Hoskins) and Henry's mentally ill mother (Kate Burton), whom Sam visits at her empty mansion. These are just two people who seem to be a part of both Henry's and Sam's lives. As the psychiatrist continues investigating Henry's background, he seems to be following himself, and things are getting very strange. Did Lila just call him Henry, or did he imagine it? Why are mundane events being repeated? Why has time become malleable? How does Leon regain his sight? The story is suddenly lush with miracles, and the form and texture of Manhattan are becoming less and less real, until it all seems to be occurring in an alternate state. If all this sounds like it's occurring in a state of confusion, rest assured, it all makes sense at the end. Not as in the "Sixth Sense," where you look back and appreciate how well you were fooled, but in a way that makes you think, "Why did I waste my time?" ************************************************************* Have a great day to you ALL. Sami
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| SincereSami |
STAY (R) *½
98 minutes? You'll want to leave BY CARLA MEYER Featuring the gorgeous trio of Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling along with sleek, coolly lit New York interiors, Stay gets points for looks. But this would-be psychological thriller is all style, no thrills. Confusing at times and predictable at others, Stay was directed by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) and written by David Benioff (25th Hour), vaulting it into the leagues of such pedigreed disappointments as Alexander and Be Cool. Gosling plays a college art major named Henry, a suicidal but carefully coiffed New Yorker who's suspicious of his new therapist, Dr. Sam Foster (McGregor), yet trusting enough to tell him that he plans to kill himself. Sam, despite an office and home full of glass and steel, is a cuddly guy. He wears a sweater vest and pants that, for reasons known only to him, end an inch above his ankles. He wants to help. Open of expression and cute as a button, McGregor isn't believable for a second as a psychiatrist. When his character says, ''I'm Dr. Sam Foster,'' McGregor adopts a quizzical look, as if he's not convinced. Maybe Sam isn't who he thinks he is. As Henry and Sam walk together, all the people walking past them are twins or triplets. It's almost as if Forster is trying to tell us something. Benioff's script features such clichés as a disturbed man extinguishing cigarettes on his own arm, and a few truly awful scenes. In one, Henry tells the doctor about hearing voices. Sam asks him to repeat what he's heard, at which point Henry repeats the words of a fellow patient who just greeted the doctor in real life. Kudos to McGregor and Gosling for keeping straight faces. Watts plays the doctor's girlfriend, an artist who once attempted suicide. Her similarities to Henry are creepy, but her boyfriend is creepier, because he used to be her psychiatrist. Watts doesn't get a whole lot to do here. At her most extreme, she looks puzzled, but seeing this lovely actress go through a film without having to be terrified or dirty is satisfying in its own right. Gosling, however, needs to hang up the troubled post-adolescent roles, after The Believer, Murder By Numbers, The United States of Leland and this film. His most appealing character of the past few years was his most normal, in the The Notebook. Sanity suits Gosling so much better than the tortured stuff. Henry's behavior, which includes insisting that his father is dead, then alive, is hard to comprehend and harder to care about. You wonder why Sam is so fixated on this self-dramatizing young man. It doesn't take a psychiatrist to know that a kid who tells you he's going to commit suicide wants someone to keep him from doing it. B.D. Wong, playing an official at the local psych ward whom Sam consults, tells Sam the police have bigger things to worry about than a depressed college kid. At last, a voice of reason. Forster's disjointed cuts and camera angles fail to spice things up as intended. Instead, he seems to be killing time until the film's trick ending. Having to sit through a purposely muddled 90 minutes just to reach said trick ending will inspire resentment in place of illumination. And even as the picture fumbles toward some clarity, it never explains McGregor's high waters. ************************************************************* Have a great day to you ALL. Sami
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| SincereSami |
Stay (2 out of 5 stars)
Confusing 'Stay' simply fails to get going Roger Moore | Sentinel Movie Critic Posted October 21, 2005 Stay. To the final credits. Otherwise, it will make no sense. Stay is a heartless puzzle that builds no empathy for its characters, no pathos at all, as it is giving us many cryptic clues that don't really lead to that finale. It's an intellectual exercise, not an emotional one. Ewan McGregor stars as Sam, a psychiatrist who takes on another doctor's troubled patient, just as that patient is about to kill himself. Henry is played by the perpetually morose flexer-of-his-cheek-muscles, Ryan Gosling (The United States of Leland). He's depressed. He has burned himself with cigarettes. Why? "Practicing for hell." There's heavy guilt here. He says he has killed his parents, but Sam doesn't think the story checks out. Henry's able to see, seemingly, the future. At least the weather. And he's resolved to kill himself in three days, imitating his favorite artist, who thought "an elegant suicide is the ultimate work of art." Sam struggles with his patient and Henry's former doctor, who has lost it (Janeane Garofalo). He finds himself having conversations with dead people, forever running up and down Escher staircases that lead to nowhere. And he's troubled at home, by his relationship with once-suicidal Lila, another artist (Naomi Watts) who is his live-in love. More clues -- jump cuts, scenes, incidents and lines of dialogue are repeated. Identically dressed sets of twins and triplets keep wandering into the frame. Faces morph from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Snippets of a car ride, and accident, crop up. Here's another hint. Marc Forster, director of Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland is off in Ambrose Bierce land, for those who know An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and the movie built around its conceit, Jacob's Ladder. It's demanding in the way a puzzle that never actually gives you all its pieces can be. But as intriguing as it is to ponder, the lack of emotional connection to any of the characters just kills the effect. So if you see Stay, stay long enough to figure it out and maybe pick up on the connections attempted in the resolution. But if you need to feel something in your movies, stay away. Rmoore@Orlandosentinel.Com Reviewing key: ***** excellent, **** good, *** average, ** poor, * awful ************************************************************* Have a great day to you ALL. Sami
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| SincereSami |
Lack of plot begs audiences to 'Stay' away
By: Mack Perry Issue date: 10/28/05 A stilted psychological thriller haplessly submerged in confounding imagery, languid performances and an inscrutable climax, "Stay" is a film that will leave viewers walking away puzzled and disenchanted. While the film's principal mystery is accentuated by mesmerizing visual transitions and excessive figurative depth, it's essentially undermined by weary portrayals from compelling performers -aside from another haunting entry from Ryan Gosling - and a conclusion that's more of a slap in the face than a proper resolution. While the various supernatural occurrences surrounding the film's troubled protagonist may instill within viewers a sense of restrained curiosity, the film's jaunting twists and narrative turns are executed with such listless isolation that the film's surreal milieu remains emotionally distant. And just when the opportunity for an inventive climax presents itself to redeem the film's stifling pace, it gradually derails the calculated clues and natural conclusions implied by key scenes and renders preceding portions of the film ineffectual. Déjà vu has never been so tiresome. The film chronicles the fervent attempts by Sam Foster, a placid New York psychiatrist, to avert the impending death of Henry Lethem, a disturbed college student whose very existence seems to obscure the lines between life, death, fantasy and reality. Foster is aided by Lila, his calm but concerned girlfriend and former patient, and Dr. Beth Levy, a degenerative associate with an obvious attraction to the plain doctor. As his investigation of Lethem progressively skews reality, Foster eventually converses with Lethem's deceased parents in an existential search for the truth that culminates on a vibrant, dreamlike projection of the Brooklyn Bridge. While Ewan McGregor traditionally infuses his vibrant performances with pulsating charisma and refreshing insight, any semblance of McGregor's trademark charm disappears under Sam Foster's monotonous demeanor. Naomi Watts appears equally as uninterested with her stagnant, although somewhat serene, portrayal of the tragically complacent Lily. Janeane Garofolo's turn as a one-dimensional supporting character reveals another startling waste of the collective potential that ironically aids the film's disillusioned nature. While Bob Hoskin's portrayal of Lethem's befuddled father is one of the film's more noteworthy performances, it's Ryan Gosling's unparalleled grasp of tormented adolescence that brings the character of Henry Lethem significant legitimacy. But much like the last two chapters of "The Matrix" trilogy and the ambitious "Vanilla Sky," the film conveys an overabundance of intriguing metaphysical concepts at the expense of the narrative. While the ideas presented in the film leave an impression, general movie-goers may want to 'stay' at home and sit this one out. Mack Perry is a critic for the Statesman. Comments can be sent to him at mackp@cc.usu.edu. ************************************************************* Have a great day to you ALL. Sami
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| SincereSami |
Has anyone read a positive review about this film yet? Ihave looked and looked. I have a feeling the over all opinion of this film is bad. I look forward to hearing what some of you think.
************************************************************* Have a great day to you ALL. Sami
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