MovieChat Forums > Stay (2005) Discussion > So if this is_SPOILER

So if this is_SPOILER

posted 12 years ago by P-Permafrost
6 replies | jump to latest

a dream, or a near death experience.
Why are there the so much scenes in which the 'reality' is questioned by some of the persons in it?
For example: Sam sees the dead mother in the house. He believes she is alive but is then later told by the Sheriff that she has been dead for a long time, and ,also, somewhat later Henry tells him that they had to put the dog to sleep, thus what he has seen can't have been reality.

As a plot device this works well, because it keeps the viewer curious and interested, but i can't see this happening in a dream-state.
If i dream at night, I don't dream that i see a person and then later i am told that that person is dead and therefore i am imagining things and then i subsequently question my own reality (in my own dream!).

I mean, it might happen once; in a very strange, bizarre and lucid dream, which i haven't had ( yet i can imagine someone has had it once already).

But in this movie it seems more of a plot device. Would you really have this kind of 'Sam being the main character of a movie kind of story' when you are having a dream or a near death experience, or the boedhist idea of accepting your death?

What do you think of this?

[–] The-Revenant-of-IMDb 12 years ago

I think this film is trying to make you think and being dreamy itself by simply offering an exercise for imagination and interpretation. For all we know this is how Henry--or Sam, as others believe it is like "Inception", i.e. a dream within a dream--dreams. I'm sure everyone's dreams are similar but different. But I think you're concentrating too much on how "he" is dreaming. He may not even be dreaming. "Who knows?" is the question the movie is asking. That's how I see it.

"I know it's not hip to say it, but I just love acting."-Nicolas Cage

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] 12 years ago

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[–] mymoviemind 11 years ago

Wow, great explanation! This story makes much more sense to me now. I've been reading a lot of interpretations but I think yours is the best I've read, at least for me. Glad you posted.

[–] seven_t_eight 11 years ago

I totally agree cjd2112. You have put it perfectly.

[–] elay2433 11 years ago

I have to agree. It is a plot device. Kind of a cheat in this scenario. Even if it is a near-death-experience and Henry's mind is scrambled from the accident as he lays dying, he's not going to dream/hallucinate that he is Sam trying to help Henry. It's the 'point of view' cheat here that ruined the entire movie for me.

It was all great, bizarre, beautiful, strange, and you expected it all to come together in the end. It didn't. And I think that's because the point of view was off. We (the audience) experience nearly every (if not every) scene through Sam. The mystery of what's going on, the desire to help a troubled young man, the motivation to do so and to get to the bottom of what's going on is all tied into Sam and his established life - all of which, in the end, you come to find out never existed but was created as a passing entertainment for a man (who made appearances in this story/dream/hallucination) as he lay dying.

It didn't all gel in the end (as in, for example, Identity). I felt tricked. It was the old unreliable narrator trick.

Then again, it's possible I missed something. I wanted to like this movie -- I actually did like this movie until the end.