Stay (2005)
Average Rating: 4.6/10
Reviews Counted: 121
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 89
A muddled brain-teaser, Stay has a solid cast and innovative visuals but little beneath the surface.
Average Rating: 4.2/10
Critic Reviews: 36
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 30
A muddled brain-teaser, Stay has a solid cast and innovative visuals but little beneath the surface.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 72,078
My Rating
Movie Info
A man struggling to save the life of another finds himself drawn into a strange netherworld he didn't know existed in this stylish thriller. Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) is a psychiatrist living in New York City with his girlfriend, Lila Culpepper (Naomi Watts), who was once one of his patients. However, it's another one of his patients who becomes the focus of his obsessions when Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling), a disturbed young man whom Foster took over from a colleague, announces during a session
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Cast
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Ewan McGregor
Sam Foster -
Naomi Watts
Lila Culpepper -
Ryan Gosling
Henry Letham -
Janeane Garofalo
Dr. Beth Levy -
B.D. Wong
Dr. Ren -
Bob Hoskins
Dr. Leon Patterson -
Becky Ann Baker
Butch Cook, Paramedic #... -
Kate Burton
Mrs. Letham -
Jarleth Conroy
English Man -
Isaach De Bankolé
Professor -
Oni Faida Lampley
Daisy, Waitress #3 -
Mark Margolis
Business Man -
Angela Pietropinto
English Woman, Waitress... -
Mary Testa
Waitress #1 -
Michael Gaston
Security Officer, Sheri... -
Jessica Hecht
Boy's Mother -
John Chiang
Dancer -
G.A. Aguilar
Bicyclist -
Douglas Crosby
Psych Ward Paramedic #1 -
Jose Ramon Rosario
Cabbie, Piano Mover #2 -
Noah Bean
Clerk, Student Guide -
John Tormey
Custodian, Piano Mover ... -
Blaise Corrigan
Psych Ward Paramedic #2 -
Lisa Kron
Paramedic #2 -
Gregory Mitchell
Dance Instructor -
Amy Sedaris
Toni -
Robin De Jesus
Dancer -
Tom Titone
Dancer -
Elizabeth Reaser
Athena -
Michael Devine
Security Guard -
Riley G. Matthews Jr.
Officer #1 -
Sterling K. Brown
Devon, Frederick -
John Dominici
Boy, Young Henry -
Jolly Abraham
Intern, Young Woman -
Vito Violante
Officer #2 -
Hank Eulau
Noodle Man -
Caroline Leppanen
Dancer #2 -
Carolyn Dorfman
Dancer -
Emily Gayeski
Dancer -
Noel MacDuffie
Dancer -
Kevin Osgood
Dancer -
Elizabeth H. Parkinson
Dancer -
Karine Plantadit-Bageot
Dancer -
John Selya
Dancer -
Kyle Sheldon
Dancer -
Pamela B. Wagner
Dancer -
Mam Smith
Dancer #1
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Stay Trailer & Photos
All Critics (131) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (36) | Rotten (90) | DVD (19)
Stay is interesting, but it's hard to recommend to anyone but the small cadre of David Lynch devotees who will inhale anything with a whiff of similarity to their favorite auteur's scent.
Top CriticIn Marc Forster's humorless thriller, going insane is an exciting, luxurious affair.
This is the kind of flop that makes even the popcorn taste lousy.
There's a lot of talent at work here from the cast to the screenwriter to the director and the visuals, but it's all so arbitrary and cheap and the payoff is so, so lame.
S lot of talent gets expended in Stay. (I'm not including whoever dressed McGregor.) Too bad the movie they made, while effective in short spurts, is almost a complete waste of time.
It's all very deep, but in a tricked-up, art-directed sort of way.
It is both straightforward and abstract, using cinematic tricks to put the audience in Sam/Henry's headspace. The result is a bit a sense of intentional vertigo that may cloud the films ultimately humanist point.
Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling all lower their box office merit with this unbaked psychological thriller about a suicidal man (Gosling) taunting his eccentric psychologist (McGregor) after surviving a horrible car accident.
Complex movie with mature themes -- not for kids.
The effect is something indescribably cinematic, as the inner mechanics of the mind's eye are vividly translated onto the big screen. Beautiful, haunting and ultimately transcendent...
Stay wants to be good, creepy fun, but by the middle of the film, I was so uninterested in the plot I became obsessed with McGregor's pants
Ultimately the film delivers such a weak payoff that it makes nearly everything that came before it seem rather pointless.
A head-scratching thriller...
So often, I have seen films like this that try to walk the fine line between creativity and confusion. Director Marc Forster manages to walk that line with precision.
...the film is more atmospheric than it is intellectual: the tone, the mood, the appearance are all-important.
The technical virtues of the film may outstrip the content, but it's an entertaining film, nonetheless. You might want to stay around for this one.
Pretty to look at, tough to follow, and, ultimately, difficult to swallow, Stay certainly isn't a bad film ... but it sure as heck isn't one you'll be raving about anytime soon.
Stay isn't a film for everyone, but I hope more audacious cinephiles will give it a whirl on disc. Bonus: There is a plethora of additional release material to enjoy.
Audience Reviews for Stay
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Sam Foster: Bad art is more tragically beautiful than good art because it documents human failure.
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- Sam Foster: If this is a dream, the whole world is inside it.
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- Henry Letham: An elegant suicide is the ultimate work of art.
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- Lila Culpepper: There's too much beauty to quit.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Did Marc Foster sleep with 74% of critics' spouses or something? | 5 months ago | 0 |
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