Review of Stay (2005) by Wynne L — 18 Dec 2008

I can't believe the abysmal implications of Donnie Darko being rated higher than this movie. Not because I didn't like Donnie Darko--I did--but because the idiotic reason I saw given in most reviews for Stay being panned is that "it doesn't come to a conclusion. In the end, the plot doesn't know where it's going." Translated: "I don't understand, so I'm going to tell you there's nothing to understand so I look smart.".

Stay, like Donnie Darko, has the kind of subtle solution based on soft, careful hints which only a person who wants to bother to think will understand. But Stay, unlike Donnie Darko, is much easier to puzzle together if you keep your understanding of psychology and the human brain in the forefront of your mind.

So how the HELL do you praise Donnie Darko, a very confusing and hard-to-figure-out movie which is so obscure that unless you see the extra scenes you probably COULDN'T figure it out, and pan Stay, whose solution is made brilliantly obvious to the careful and bright observer on the first viewing, with perfect timing at the very end when the last few critical pieces make it visible? I guess Donnie Darko was so obscure that, out of "the Emperor's new clothes"-style fear, all the critics praised it to the high heavens without really getting it. Then when Stay came along, they didn't bother to exercise their brains because it wasn't indie enough to make them realize they'd look like morons if they couldn't understand.

The next time critics start whining about how the idiotic masses couldn't understand how incredible some foreign (or indie) film was, I'm going to tell them to shut their faces. (Unless they're talking about something like the original Spanish version of that weak, inferior Tom Cruise film, because the original was plainly awesome. Come to think of it, if you liked and understood the plot of Abre Los Ojos/Vanilla Sky, Stay would be right up your alley.) They'll go on and on about how marvelous something is if they don't know the native language, possibly in part because they're terrified of being seen as prejudiced, but when an American film comes along-- if it's not indie, do they assume they shouldn't have to do any actual thinking, and thus not pay due attention?

I can only hope a lot of them will watch the movie again someday, turn beet red, and then start kicking themselves for being such elitist jerkwads.