Stay (film)

Infobox_Film
name = Stay

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caption ="Stay" film poster
imdb_id =0371257
writer =David Benioff
starring =Ewan McGregor
Naomi Watts
Ryan Gosling
Bob Hoskins
director =Marc Forster
producer =
editing = Matt Chesse
cinematography = Roberto Schaefer
distributor = 20th Century Fox
released = October 21, 2005
runtime =99 min
language =English
country = United States
music =
awards =
budget =$50,000,000 (estimated)

"Stay" is an American film directed by Marc Forster and written by David Benioff. It stars Ewan McGregor, Ryan Gosling, Bob Hoskins and Naomi Watts, with production by Regency and distribution by 20th Century Fox. The film represents intense relationships centering on reality, death, love and the afterlife. The film received mixed reviews by critics (receiving a solid 3 1/2 stars by Roger Ebert though only a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes), and did poorly at the box office.

Plot summary

The movie opens with a car crash on Brooklyn Bridge, and introduces Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling), apparently a survivor of the crash, sitting next to a burning car on the bridge.

Psychiatrist Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) and his girlfriend Lila (Naomi Watts) are then introduced in a new scene. Sam discusses his patient, Henry, a college student and aspiring artist whom he describes as depressed and paranoid. Sometimes Henry hears voices, and he seems able to predict future events. Henry has told Sam that he will kill himself that Saturday at midnight, which Sam finds very troubling. Lila, an art teacher who has survived a past suicide attempt, offers to help to dissuade Henry from killing himself. But first they must find Henry.

Sam investigates Henry's circumstances in an effort to help. Henry claims to have killed both of his parents, but Sam finds that Henry's mother appears to be alive. Sam visits Henry's mother but finds her living in a bare house, confused about Sam's identity (she insists that he is Henry) and refuses to respond to his questions. Henry's mother insists on feeding Sam, but when she opens the fridge it is completely empty, and then her dog bites Sam.

At the clinic to have his arm bandaged, Sam discusses the visit with a police officer who is curious as to why he would visit that house. Sam reveals that she started to bleed from a head wound during his conversation with Henry's mother. The police officer tells him that the woman who lived there is dead. This seems to send Sam into a fugue in which the same scene is repeated several times.

Later Sam contacts a waitress with whom Henry had fallen in love. She is an aspiring actress and he meets her at a script reading where she is reading lines with another man. She agrees to take him to Henry, but after a long trip down winding staircases he loses her. When he gets back to the rehearsal room, she is there reading the same lines as when he first met her.

The search continues until 11:33 pm on Saturday, less than half an hour before Henry plans to kill himself. At a bookshop known to have been frequented by Henry, Sam finds a painting that Henry had painted and bartered for books about Henry's favorite artist. He learns that the artist had killed himself on Brooklyn Bridge, on his twenty-first birthday. Henry's twenty-first birthday is Sunday, and Sam realises that Henry plans to commit suicide on Brooklyn Bridge in imitation of the artist.

Sam finds Henry on Brooklyn Bridge, but fails to stop him. He turns away as Henry puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

The car crash of the first scene is then reprised. Henry is apparently the sole survivor of the crash, but is badly injured and suffers survivor guilt. In another scene, however, Sam and Lila, who have never met one another, are in the traffic on the bridge and try to save his life, but he dies.

Connections to "Hamlet"

There are several times in the movie that William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" is in some way referenced, and there are things in the movie that suggest that the play was an inspiration for the movie.
* "Letham" is an anagram of "Hamlet"
* Athena uses Hamlet's line, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
* Athena is cast as Ophelia (who is doomed to die), but would rather be in Hamlet's shoes (debating death, as Henry is)
* Sam's girlfriend Lila has tried to commit suicide. Hamlet's girlfriend Ophelia drowns in what may be a passive suicide.
* Henry is freaked out when he sees his father's "ghost"
* Athena says her favorite line in "Hamlet" is, " :HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
* In Act II, Scene ii (the scene Athena reads with her Rosencrantz friend):HAMLET: Denmark's a prison. :ROSENCRANTZ: Then is the world one.
* A play within a play theme.

External links

* [http://www.staythemovie.com/ Official site]
*imdb title|id=0371257|title=Stay