What would you do if your new psych patient told you he was going to kill himself and gave you the exact day and time? It is this very dilemma Dr. Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor, "The Island") faces in the new film "Stay."
Dealing mostly with depressed housewives and stressed-out businessmen, Dr. Foster faces something very unsuspected in his first meeting with Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling, "The Notebook"), a pale, sallow-looking college student and aspiring artist. Unaware of his change in psychiatrist, he is antagonistic and uncooperative with the doctor and does not stay to complete his session.
The next time Dr. Foster sees Henry is when he shows up at his office, unannounced. He is claiming to hear voices, but at the same time he does not know which voices are real and which ones are in his head. Dr. Foster tells Henry he can help him distinguish between what is real and what isn't, if he will let him.
In the mean time, Dr. Foster reluctantly seeks the advice of his girlfriend, Lila (Naomi Watts, "The Ring"). Lila is an artist/art teacher who has her own history of suicide and depression, one that still distresses her boyfriend. However, Lila's own medical history and experiences as an artist are tools Dr. Foster uses to understand his patient.
When Friday comes, Henry has vanished, leaving few clues about his life behind and even less time for Dr. Foster to find him.
What the doctor does know is that Henry is determined to die in the same way his favorite artist met his demise, by suicide on the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight on his 21st birthday. He also knows that Henry feels responsible for the death of his parents and that he had one love — a woman named Athena. Dr. Foster enters in a race against time to discover the truth about Henry and try to save Henry from himself.
What Dr. Foster discovers, however, makes him question everything he knows, including his confidence in differentiating between the real and unreal. He finds he is no more sure of anything than his own patient Henry is, and it is that information he attempts to impress upon Henry in the final moments of the movie; whether he is successful or not, viewers will have to decide for themselves.
Marc Foster, who directed this film and others, including "Monster's Ball" and "Finding Neverland," faced quite a challenge in making this movie. He had to do it in a way that would make it stand out from others in its drama/thriller genre. Foster accomplishes this, in part through his excellent and well-known cast. Each actor/actress is strong in his or her respective characters and Gosling and McGregor play well opposite each other when they are in scenes together. The in-depth development of their characters and the intense interaction between them help "Stay" hold true to its identification as a drama.
As a thriller, it is much more subtle. It is the suspense created through Dr. Foster's discoveries in his search for Henry that give it this classification as well as the anxiety over what will happen to Henry at midnight Saturday.
Although the film has a unique story line, the way it was filmed is one of the ways it really stands apart from others. One scene molds into another, a window will become the glass to an aquarium and Henry's face becomes the doctor's. The movie tends to go back and forth between the two main characters in a way that may remind viewers of "Fight Club" or other movies of that nature.
At the same time, however, it keeps the viewer invigorated and continually thinking and wondering what is really happening. Viewers will encounter the same problem the characters are facing, distinguishing between what is real and unreal and realizing in the end, that what they are seeing is the surreal. Although at times quite confusing, "Stay" is a movie worth seeing, even if viewers may have to see it more than once to truly understand it.
