==Day 2 of Ryan Gosling Filmography binge==

Okay so, I went into this movie expecting nothing, I just knew it was a mindfuck plot twist kinda movie, which I love btw. I love myself some open ended conclusions, mystery flicks and also movies that makes me wonder what's real and what's not.

'Stay' however also tries to be such a movie, a movie that makes us guess what's happening and what will happen. Aiming for similar level of depth such as 'Black Swan' or 'Perfect Blue', 'Stay' fell short for me. Despite Ryan Gosling's stellar performance, the editing and the style the movie failed to grab me in terms of substance. A really well executed stylish movie on the surface but deep down it lacked the substance i expected from it. I very much loved the first act, I was never bored but as it proceeded the overall experience came off a bit pretentious and gave me "wannabe smart movie" carried by a groundbreaking plot twist.

The film's greatest strength is the style and the editing, oh god the transition, I loved them at first and screamed early 2000s for me. The cast was solid, Ryan Gosling was great his range is really amazing, I didn't see anything note-worthy from other cast members though. However, the film relies heavily on a contrived plot twist. Moreover the film's artsy presentation overshadowed what little substance we got from it, although it's visually appealing it ultimately ended up masking the film's lack of depth.

Overall, it's still a solid experience, I might need a rewatch to completely understand the love it gets from some people, I love myself some convoluted mindfuck plots but this wasn't really my cup of tea.

Stay- 6.3/10
Ryan Gosling- 8.2/10

Without spoilers, this is a very well constructed movie that I felt wasn't written as well as it thinks it is but it's still a good watch

Now spoilers:
[spoiler]
I'm really not particularly a fan of "it was all a dream" endings and this movie seems to have been made in the height of that phenomenon following The Sixth Sense. Despite that, I suppose what elevates this movie significantly and makes the ending work is that the movie never really lies to you. It makes it very apparent very early on that it is a dream. The choices made by the director in the editing, the clever scene transitions and the easter eggs peppered throughout make it very obvious that all is not as it seems and it disorients you constantly
[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
In that way, the movie is very well made. A lot of very clever choices were made and the movie tells a lot just by showing. For eg. for the most part, every scene set in a stairwell is always shown with the characters going down, the use of morph transitions occasionally makes you mistrust what you see and so on
[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
I suppose my big problem is with the writing. Now I didn't really like that the primary POV, that of Doctor Sam was fake. It seemed quite disingenuous that we see Sam losing his mind more so than Henry who gets very little screen time yet is the one who is dreaming. The movie also gave itself away far too early. Maybe it's just me having watched so many movies but it was highly apparent from the first scene of the car crash and Henry walking away that that was what had happened. Any other attempts at trying to convince me, the viewer, that maybe Sam was losing his mind really made no sense and I was expecting Sam to be a figment of his imagination. This meant I was pretty severely disappointed that Sam was a bystander helping out the dying Henry. The ending of Sam asking Lila out was also a very contrived moment that I really disliked and would have worked better if they'd exchanged numbers as witnesses to an accident. The whole movie could have tried to be more subtle but I felt the writing was trying way too hard and going "YOU GET IT YET? YOU GET IT? IT'S A DREAM DO YOU GET IT?" at me without really earning it
[/spoiler]