Movies - Stay

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	Movies - Stay

Stay is a 2005 film directed by Marc Forster.

Tagline: Between the worlds of the living and the dead there is a place you're not supposed to stay.

Cast

Ewan McGregor
– Dr. Sam Foster
Ryan Gosling
– Henry Letham
Kate Burton – Mrs. Letham
Naomi Watts
– Lila Culpepper
Janeane Garofalo
– Dr. Beth Levy
Elizabeth Reaser – Athena

Plot

---- The world of the living and dead are blurred. The main character is a suicidal, deranged student/artist Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling) who is treated by psychiatrist, Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor). When Foster attempts to save Letham, he meets people who don't exist, and runs around to find people who have been dead for years. The film's irony is showcased when Foster appears to be Letham and delusional. Bob Hoskins also stars as Letham's father, Dr. Leon Patterson, a blind man who re-directs the movie when he suddenly sees that the world is an illusion. A confusing, suspenseful film about the relations of perception and reality.

Interpretations and speculations

Please note: This is only one interpretation, and one which is still under development. It is provided here only to encourage the thinking process about this movie. It is hoped that this whole section will quickly be replaced by people brighter than I.

As a basic interpretation, it is clear that someone is in the process of dying or has died, presumably Henry Letham. Throughout the movie, Henry hears voices which are later revealed to be the voices of people surrounding him while he is dying. All the characters in the film, in fact, turn out to be people surrounding him as he dies. Accordingly, we can assume the entire movie is in actuality happening in Henry's mind as he dies.

This theory, or at least something close to it, is supported by the many dream references made. Leon, when he miraculously gains sight, declares that the Buddhists were right, that the world is an illusion. Henry is obsessed with a fake artist by the name of Tristan Reveur, reveur being french for dreamer.

Presuming this theory is accurate, the movie dances between notions of purgatory/hell/heaven and simply the inner-conversations of a dying man trying to come to terms with his life. He feels extreme guilt about "what he did" and is convinced he's on his way to hell, or already there.

Either way, the movie is leading up to the moment of truth, where he is either being judged, judging himself, or must make a choice. When the movie finally gets to the car accident that fatally wounds him, the entire world becomes very visually unstable, until finally he dies. The world becomes relatively clear again, although some blurriness is still apparent. Notably, during this final scene, Sam is revealed to indeed be a doctor of some sort (not necessarily a psychiatrist). This would suggest that whetever went on in Henry's subconscious, the real world was interwoven into that reality. This is further supported when Henry dies and Sam, who shouldn't have any notion of what Henry had envisioned during this whole film, has brief memory flashes of times spent with Lila. In Henry's world, Sam and Lila were a couple. But in the "real world", Sam and Lila met only while trying to save Henry's life after the accident.

Another aspect of the movie that must be understood (and is not fully understood by this author!) is that all the characters would seem to actually be various facets of one core character's (Henry) psyche, perhaps helping him understand himself somehow.

It is also very much possible that the movie plays on the Hindu theme (which has been played upon by others, such as The Matrix) of dreams within dreams, whereby the entire world is actually a part of a dream, whose dreamer is nothing but a dream character in yet another dream. This would be supported by the reference to the Buddhist "World is an illusion" idea, especially since Buddhism was born from Hinduism.

Quotes

"Bad art is more tragically beautiful than good art, because it documents human failure.", Henry Letham, quoting the imaginary artist Tristan Reveur.

"A graceful suicide is the greatest piece of art.", Tristan Reveur.

"There's too much beauty to quit". Lila.

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