Please don't go
I saw Stay, starring Naomi Watts, Ryan Gosling, and Ewan McGregor, recently. I WOULD link to the movie Web site, but Fox is doing an increasingly annoying thing: re-directing you from the original movie Web site address to its online store, where you can purchase the DVD of said movie. As a result, the original movie site has been taken down. Boo on you, Fox. You'd do better to leave the initial sites up (especially since they are already created and you are clearly still paying to own the Web address) and offer the option to buy the DVD there.
At any rate, the movie is very very good in a mindbending sort of way. Here's the skinny: Standing in for a sick colleague, New York psychiatrist Sam Foster (McGregor) begins counseling disturbed art student Henry Letham (Gosling). Seemingly inspired by his idol, a painter infamous for committing suicide on his 21st birthday, Henry tells Sam he will shoot himself Saturday at midnight--the moment he turns 21. Sam, having previously saved his suicidal girlfriend Lila (Watts), takes the threat seriously but fails to detain Henry so he can be taken into medical custody (a rather grim prospect). Instead, while trying to track his patient down, Sam learns more about Henry and is gradually drawn into his world - Henry's parents are dead (Henry insists it's all his fault.), his girlfriend is "gone," he seems to know what's going to happen before it does, he's sure he's going to hell, he tells Sam it's "too late" to save him, etc. The more Sam learns about Henry, the more he begins to lose his own grip on reality. (But for those of you who hate ambiguity, don't fret. All is revealed in the final scenes of the film.)
First of all, the film is beautifully shot. Henry is an art student, and the film itself has a very artistic vibe. Scenes bleed into one another in a beautiful but disorienting manner. Shots are jumped in interesting ways. The closing credits are even artistic. The film's tone is mostly a collection of blues and grays, lots of dark shots, some cool silhouettes.
Secondly, the film does a good job of keeping the audience off-track. You're never quite sure what is happening. Is Henry mad? Is Sam going mad? Are Henry and Sam one in the same? What is reality and what is psychosis? Even at the close, when the film's endgame is revealed, your brain has to chew on it for a while to put all of the pieces together.
OK, SPOILER ALERT. Don't read further if you don't want to know the ending.
Here's what's really going on: Henry is never really Sam's patient at all. He's the victim of a car accident. He's been thrown from the vehicle (he was driving), and he's lying faceup on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sam is simply a bystander who witnessed the car accident (in which Henry's parents and girlfriend have died) and has stopped to help.
The movie is really a study of the mind - what an injured brain is thinking as death nears. Henry is conscious of Sam and the onlookers (all who appear in previous incarnations in the film, in Henry's "world"), and his racing mind is trying to reconcile things and make sense of them. Should he fight to try and live (with his family and girlfriend dead?), or should he succumb to death? He knows Sam is trying to help him, but is it really too late? Is the beauty of the world worth trying to stick around for? Suffering from a head wound and shock, how can Henry know what is real and what is only in his mind in those final moments, as time bends and distorts?
I thought this was a BRILLIANT film. Highly original content treated in a totally engrossing, entertaining, beautiful manner. Performances were wonderful, and I was totally hooked. I did not see the ending coming, which was sooooo refreshing. While there is some adult language, and the film certainly deals with adult subject matter, this one is a MUST-SEE.
At any rate, the movie is very very good in a mindbending sort of way. Here's the skinny: Standing in for a sick colleague, New York psychiatrist Sam Foster (McGregor) begins counseling disturbed art student Henry Letham (Gosling). Seemingly inspired by his idol, a painter infamous for committing suicide on his 21st birthday, Henry tells Sam he will shoot himself Saturday at midnight--the moment he turns 21. Sam, having previously saved his suicidal girlfriend Lila (Watts), takes the threat seriously but fails to detain Henry so he can be taken into medical custody (a rather grim prospect). Instead, while trying to track his patient down, Sam learns more about Henry and is gradually drawn into his world - Henry's parents are dead (Henry insists it's all his fault.), his girlfriend is "gone," he seems to know what's going to happen before it does, he's sure he's going to hell, he tells Sam it's "too late" to save him, etc. The more Sam learns about Henry, the more he begins to lose his own grip on reality. (But for those of you who hate ambiguity, don't fret. All is revealed in the final scenes of the film.)
First of all, the film is beautifully shot. Henry is an art student, and the film itself has a very artistic vibe. Scenes bleed into one another in a beautiful but disorienting manner. Shots are jumped in interesting ways. The closing credits are even artistic. The film's tone is mostly a collection of blues and grays, lots of dark shots, some cool silhouettes.
Secondly, the film does a good job of keeping the audience off-track. You're never quite sure what is happening. Is Henry mad? Is Sam going mad? Are Henry and Sam one in the same? What is reality and what is psychosis? Even at the close, when the film's endgame is revealed, your brain has to chew on it for a while to put all of the pieces together.
OK, SPOILER ALERT. Don't read further if you don't want to know the ending.
Here's what's really going on: Henry is never really Sam's patient at all. He's the victim of a car accident. He's been thrown from the vehicle (he was driving), and he's lying faceup on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sam is simply a bystander who witnessed the car accident (in which Henry's parents and girlfriend have died) and has stopped to help.
The movie is really a study of the mind - what an injured brain is thinking as death nears. Henry is conscious of Sam and the onlookers (all who appear in previous incarnations in the film, in Henry's "world"), and his racing mind is trying to reconcile things and make sense of them. Should he fight to try and live (with his family and girlfriend dead?), or should he succumb to death? He knows Sam is trying to help him, but is it really too late? Is the beauty of the world worth trying to stick around for? Suffering from a head wound and shock, how can Henry know what is real and what is only in his mind in those final moments, as time bends and distorts?
I thought this was a BRILLIANT film. Highly original content treated in a totally engrossing, entertaining, beautiful manner. Performances were wonderful, and I was totally hooked. I did not see the ending coming, which was sooooo refreshing. While there is some adult language, and the film certainly deals with adult subject matter, this one is a MUST-SEE.
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