I've watched this movie a grand total of two times, and I can honestly say that the point of this movie does not get clearer no matter how many times you watch it. It's not like the Matrix, which is obviously trying to say something. This movie is boring, trite, and relies on good visuals to make up for it's pretentious laziness.I'm surprised this movie has gotten 6.9 stars. There are better movies that do worse than that.In a nutshell, this movie is about a young man's bizarre hallucination before he dies. It's got weird spiritual references about Buddhism, and about how life is just an illusion, etc. The young man acts like Jesus by predicting the weather and healing the blind. Trust me, though, the movie is not nearly so deep as to justify these plot elements. So much of the dialogue and characters are utterly pointless to the ending that it annoys me how much of a waste of time it is to watch it.

This is one of those movies that requires a second viewing to completely appreciate. The first time I saw this movie, I found myself trying to figure out what every scene and symbol meant. I was completely off base as the ending was revealed!Marc Forster (the director) infuses each scene with great imagery. One scene in particular stands out for me: the stairs in the theatre which Sam is climbing down. This reminded me of an Escher drawing. The main actors are all great (McGregor, Watts, Gosling); the cameos by Jeanine Garofolo and Bob Hoskins are a wonderful surprise. All the while, the mystery carries you along to the ending which is a revelation. And once you re-watch the movie, the meaning of every sound and piece of dialogue becomes clear.Great ride!

Stay is another movie that plays along with a similar theme to other movies such as Donnie Darko, Time Lapse, Triangle, as well as others, so if you don't like movies where you need to use brain power to work out what's going on or want everything explained step-by-step then you'll hate this film. Generally, I don't mind films like this as they can be a break away from the seemingly endless queues of remakes, POV horrors, and IQ-killing actioners.The unfortunate thing is I didn't really enjoy Stay as much as I was hoping I would after seeing the trailers for it, and it's definitely not as good as two of the previous films I mentioned, Time Lapse or Triangle. I guess the one main thing that disappointed me with Stay was that it was SO slow, which these films sometimes are, but for me it just never really got going. I mean events would play out, picking up as they went, but they it would just die back down again. it was all too much stop/start for my liking. I know films such as this can't play out continually increasing in pace etc, but like I say, the lulls just happened too frequently and it was tricky to keep my interest peaked.With that being said, it IS a good story and it plays out decently enough. Some people will probably moan that this story is a "rip-off" of other movies, but that's nonsense because how many movies out there are 100% all original? Not many. This isn't a "rip-off" - it's another addition to this type of psychological genre. Anyway, I digress. The story is an interesting one and it is actually filmed out and edited together very decently with the merging of different scenes done really well. It's very intricately told and is a clever script. I just wish it had a bit more pace to it is all.The film is very well acted out also, especially with Ryan Gosling as Henry Letham. I'm not a massive fan of his, but he does a really good job here, as do Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts.Overall, Stay isn't too bad of a film, especially if you enjoy these bind-benders, but there is better out there.

Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling) survives a car fire on the Brooklyn Bridge. Dr. Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) substitutes for Dr. Beth Levy (Janeane Garofalo) to treat Henry. Foster's girlfriend is artist Lila Culpepper (Naomi Watts). Henry suggests that he may kill himself. Dr. Ren (BD Wong) is willing to commit him before his scheduled suicide. Henry talks about waitress Athena (Elizabeth Reaser) whom he supposedly is going to propose to. There are constant flashbacks to him driving Athena. He claims that Foster's blind colleague Dr. Leon Patterson (Bob Hoskins) is his father.Director Marc Forster's visual style gives off a cold disturbed feel. The whole surreal effect is a bit slow. It's an interesting idea for a style but it doesn't have the needed tension. One could really dissect all the visual clues but the plot feels aimless. It does explain itself in the end but it feels like a cheat. The reveal isn't profound as much as it wraps up the movie. The style could work if the plot has more of a point and a lot more tension. It could also go the other way towards a pointless darker Kafkaesque nightmare. It does threaten to do that at times but it never gets there. Also the movie should be from Henry's point of view rather than from Sam Foster's. It makes less sense with Foster as the lead or else make Foster in the car crash.