IMDb > Stay (2005/I)
Stay
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Stay (2005) -- This movie focuses on the attempts of a psychiatrist to prevent one of his patients from committing suicide while trying to maintain his own grip on reality.
Stay (2005) -- Clip: Talk to me, Beth
Stay (2005) -- This movie focuses on the attempts of a psychiatrist to prevent one of his patients from committing suicide while trying to maintain his own grip on reality.
Stay (2005) -- Movieplayer.it - Trailer (Flash)

Overview

User Rating:
6.8/10   22,756 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 5% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writer (WGA):
David Benioff (written by)
Contact:
View company contact information for Stay on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
21 October 2005 (USA) more
Genre:
Tagline:
You Can't Stay Between the Living and the Dead. more
Plot:
This movie focuses on the attempts of a psychiatrist to prevent one of his patients from committing suicide while trying to maintain his own grip on reality. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
NewsDesk:
(31 articles)
Blu-ray Review: Fight Club
 (From Rope Of Silicon. 23 November 2009, 12:40 AM, PST)

Director Marc Forster on the Importance of Failure in Filmmaking
 (From FirstShowing.net. 12 November 2009, 1:09 PM, PST)

User Comments:
the most underrated movie of 2005 more (319 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Ewan McGregor ... Dr. Sam Foster

Ryan Gosling ... Henry Letham
Kate Burton ... Mrs. Letham

Naomi Watts ... Lila Culpepper

Elizabeth Reaser ... Athena

Bob Hoskins ... Dr. Leon Patterson

Janeane Garofalo ... Dr. Beth Levy
B.D. Wong ... Dr. Ren

John Tormey ... Custodian / Piano Mover #1
José Ramón Rosario ... Cabbie / Piano Mover #2 (as José Ramon Rosario)
Becky Ann Baker ... Paramedic #1 / Butch Cook
Lisa Kron ... Paramedic #2
Gregory Mitchell ... Dance Instructor
John Dominici ... Boy / Young Henry
Jessica Hecht ... Boy's Mother
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Additional Details

MPAA:
Rated R for language and some disturbing images.
Runtime:
99 min
Country:
Language:
Colour:
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Many extras in this film are showed doubled, even tripled in background. Many times you can see two or three people walking side by side wearing the same clothes and caring same things. more
Goofs:
Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When, Leon (Henry's father) was talking to Sam after his eyes opened, he said that "The first time I can see everything" and also "I always thought you have brown eyes". If a man didn't see anything in his entire life (he is blind), how can he know colors? more
Quotes:
Lila Culpepper: There's too much beauty to quit. more
Movie Connections:
Featured in Writing the Music for 'Stay' (2006) (V) more
Soundtrack:
Who Am I (Animatrix Edit) more

FAQ

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43 out of 50 people found the following comment useful.
the most underrated movie of 2005, 8 April 2006
9/10
Author: Barshki from United States

Have you heard of Stay? If you're here you must have but I'll bet it wasn't too long ago that you found out about it. It's a movie that came out late last year with little fanfare, was dismissed as a poor movie by critics and quickly ushered back out of theaters.

It's a crying shame.

It was a wonderful movie. My favorite type of movies are psychological horror movies. Favorites include: Jacob's Ladder, Mulholland Dr., Donnie Darko, and in a similar realm, Momento and Fight Club. I love seeing a good representation of the human mind on film and that is exactly what this film shows so well.

It's about a college student (Ryan Gosling) who tells his shrink (Ewan McGregor) that he is going to kill himself on the stroke of midnight this Saturday, leaving his shrink to enlist the help of his formerly suicidal girlfriend (Naomi Watts) to figure out why he wants to kill himself and how to stop him, while his world falls apart.

It's directed by Marc Forster of Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland fame. The movie has been called pretentious, shallow, ridiculous, bewildering, absurd, and empty by many reviewers. Personally I think that they didn't have the patience for it and/or were put off by its extravagant visuals and cuts. I thought it was great and deserves much more credit than it has received.

The movie's visual style is very interesting and jarring in a good way. It had me constantly saying to my girlfriend "did you see that?" Full of slight of the hand camera/editing tricks. Nearly everything in the movie is symbolic of other things or ideas in the movie. The acting is very good, especially among the lesser characters. Everything in the movie feels so unreal, but that is serves some purpose even if one couldn't know what it is right away. A second viewing would reveal many new things. In the end much of the movie is left up to interpretation and my girlfriend and I had a good conversation about our ideas on what things meant in the movie. After thinking about it for a day I'm pretty sure that I could explain everything in the movie, even what the hell is up with Ewan McGregor's pants, Why Gosling wanted to commit suicide and the twins and triplets.

It was fun was figuring out what the rest of the movie meant after seeing its end, the solution. The movie is like a code and the end is the decryption key. It differs from other "sixth sense" type surprise ending movies because everything you would see in the movie before the end would not act as a clue to what it all means or what the ending is. It's more like decrypting a diary than a problem with a solution to it.

Basically, any movie buff owes it to themselves to see this movie. I rented it but after seeing it I fully intend to purchase the DVD.

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Spoilers... Confusing??? sachinsenthilkar
Colors moelv2000
10 somewhat similar movies - Rubber Reality Movies mira943
Who else found this movie annoying? The_tim
Why does he blame himself Gaze51
Help on the ending drmonkey55
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